The Choices We Make
by tehedward
Summary: Things can seem to be going great and then WHAM! Out of nowhere life throws you a curve ball. No one knows this better than Quinn Fabray. But it's not important what life throws at you, but how you handle it. That's what really counts. Quinntana endgame.
1. Chapter 1

**So I started this story because I was feeling a little burned out from my other one. The ideas aren't flowing for it right now and while I'm still heavily feeling the Glee fandom, like I'm currently seriously obsessed, I just need a break from my other project. So I'm doing something that I swore I wouldn't do, I'm working on two stories at once. **

**Standard disclaimer, I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

**Chapter 1**

Quinn stared at the little plus sign in horror, desperately trying to will it away, praying over and over again that it was a mistake and that it would magically change, but she knew that it would do her no good. That nothing she did or said would change what was happening. This was her third time taking the test and each time it had come back positive. There was no doubt about it, she was pregnant.

Her! Quinn Fabray, youngest captain of the Cheerio's in over a decade, the founder and head of the celibacy club, was pregnant.

How could this have happened? Okay, she knew how it happened, but not '_how'_ it happened. She remembered she had asked about protection, and Puck had said he had it… no, wait, oh God no, he had said 'don't worry about it.' How could she have been so stupid?

Quinn sunk to the bottom of her bathroom floor in a daze. It just didn't register, she was pregnant, and she couldn't be, she just couldn't. What was she going to do? Her life was over.

Tears begin to pool in her eyes and she rests her head on her knees and begins to cry silently, her body shaking with suppressed sobs, as she tries to make sense of everything, tries to figure out where it had all gone wrong.

**8 Weeks Earlier**

"Okay seriously, what the heck is up with this girl?" Quinn asked laughing, as she, Santana, and some of the other Cheerios were watching one of Rachel Berry's MySpace video. Quinn would be the first to admit that the girl had a fantastic voice, but she was just sooo intense, it was a little ridiculous.

"I know right, and God what is with that song? Doesn't she know anything from this decade?" Santana laughs. "Here gimmie that shit." Santana demands as she reaches over and grabs Quinn's laptop and then begins to type.

**From: **_**Sky Splits- 'Hey, they're selling lives at the mall, you should get one.'**_

The girls laugh, and Quinn smacks Santana's arm while rolling her eyes. "Really? If you're going to use my account to insult someone at least do a better job than that."

"Oh like you could do better bitch?" Santana challenges with a smirk.

Quinn just arches her eyebrow giving her friend a look as if asking 'Really?' She then takes her laptop back, and smirk curls up on her lip as she leaves another review.

_**From: Sky Splits- 'Seriously, do the world a favor, get sterilized.'**_

Quinn felt a little guilty for typing it but pushed it to the back of her mind as her friends start to crack up. "Damn Q, that was harsh." Santana cackles.

Quinn continues to smirk as she pushes back the guilt, it really was mean, but I mean come on, she was asking for it. Wasn't she?

"LADIES! YOU HAVE TIME TO LAUGH YOU HAVE TIME TO PRACTICE! GET RUNNING!"

The girls looked up startled at Coach Sylvester as she shouts at them through her megaphone.

"WELL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR!? MOVE!" The girls quickly jump up and off the bleachers and start running. As captain of the squad, Quinn puts in a little extra burst of energy and pulls ahead of the group. She has to set the pace; she has to set the example. Those had been Coaches' words when she had been named captain at the beginning of the year. But she wondered about what kind of example was she setting? She and her friends had just spent the last fifteen minutes making fun of some girl, for no reason other than they could, and just generally being all around horrible people. Was this the kind of person she wanted to be?

She hears coach Sylvester shouting in the distance. "YOU THINK THIS IS HARD, I'M LIVING WITH HEPATITUS, THAT'S HARD!"

Was this really how she wanted to spend her high school days, Quinn contemplates. Being a complete bitch, and listening to the orders of a raving lunatic, was this really how she wanted her life to be?

"Yo, Q, wait up." She hears Santana call out, she slows her pace down so that Santana can catch up. "Damn Q, you're really pushing it today." Santana huffs.

Quinn takes a quick look back behind her and sees that she has put quite a bit of distance between herself and the rest of the pack. She turns her head to face Santana. "It's Cheerios, San, if they aren't willing to push themselves then they need to quit. There's no room for slackers on this team."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Santana rolls her eyes. A few moments pass between them in silence, just the sound of their feet hitting the ground and the calm, deep breaths they take as they make another pass around the track. Santana looks to her friend and notices the serious look on her face. "Hey what's up with you? You're being all broody and pensive? Are your parents giving you trouble again?"

Quinn can hear the concern in her friend's voice and it brings a small smile to her face. This was the Santana that she adored, the one that only she and Brittany ever got to see. Not the snarky bitch, although she could be fun at times, but the caring and protective one who worried about and looked out for her friends.

"No, nothing like that, I just…" Here Quinn hesitates, unsure if she should say anything. "Do you think that this is all worth it…? I mean the abuse… the cruelty… all of it, just so we can be popular?"

Santana looks at her like she's grown a second head. "That's what you're worried about?"

Quinn's eyes harden, feeling like an idiot for bringing it up and she looks away as she picks up her speed again and pulls away. Santana is every bit as fit as she is, but they are different. Santana is more flexible than she is, which is great for tumbling, but Quinn is faster and has better endurance.

"Q, wait!" Santana calls out, and Quinn decides to give her a break by once again slowing down and letting her catch up. "Look, I don't see what the big deal is. We're popular, the top of the food chain, and I don't know about you but I like it up here. I don't want to get thrown into dumpsters or given a slushy facial anytime soon, and if comes down to being the person who orders them or the person who takes them, well for me it's really not a hard choice to make. So enjoy it, high school sucks for a lot of people, but it doesn't have to for us." Here Santana gently bumps her shoulder.

"We have fun, we go to parties, and we kick a little ass. Not a bad days work for a couple of sophomores, plus we're in the most powerful group in school. Nobody messes with Cheerios and guess what Q, you're the captain, the leader, the boss… as much as that thought makes me gag at times; we're set for the next three years, you, me, and Britt. Enjoy the ride Querida. Life's good, don't question it."

Quinn smiles at her best friend, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right bitch, I'm always right." Santana laughs. "Don't think so much Q, it's harder for you than most, you know being blond and everything."

Quinn scoffs at her friend and then gets an evil glint in her eye, "I just want you to know that I'm going to tell Brittany that you just said blondes are dumb." She giggles in delight as all of the blood drains from Santana's face.

"No Q, you wouldn't." Santana pleads.

Quinn just smirks at her friend and then pulls ahead of the girl, leaving her in her dust. "Quinn, c'mon, pleeeease! I'm sorry, alright!? Oh you suck!"

Quinn just laughs, she knew that her friend had a serious crush on their other friend and hated to do anything that would upset her. Not that Santana would ever admit to it of course, plus she was semi-dating Puck but whatever. It had been strangely easy for her to accept her friends' feelings for each other. She didn't care that they were interested in each other, which surprised her, especially considering how she was raised.

If Quinn was honest with herself, and it was admittedly rare that she was, she was actually a little jealous of them. They loved each other; it was obvious to her anyway. Brittany lit up whenever Santana was near, in a way that she didn't whenever they were apart. And Brittany brought out the best in Santana. If you paid attention to them it was pretty obvious how they felt about each other… plus walking in on them on multiple occasions had made it blatantly obvious as well.

Still it was sweet, and she wished them all the luck in the world. She wanted them to be happy, maybe not here in high school. She didn't think that they would ever come out in high school, too much pressure. But maybe someday, when they got out of this town they could be together. She wondered who she would stand in for as maid of honor, there was absolutely no way that she wasn't going to be it for at least one of them.

She figured at her own wedding she would have both of them stand up with her, you know, maids of honor. A little unconventional, but certainly not unheard of, besides it was her wedding and she could do whatever she wanted. Not that she was getting married anytime soon. Heck no, not until she at the very least graduated from college.

As she continues to contemplate her friends' love lives, she catches the eyes of her own love interest across the field. Dressed in his football gear he gives her that dopey, cute half smile of his and he waves at her, she smiles back and winks at him.

Finn Hudson, 'star' quarterback of the football team and her boyfriend. She uses the term 'star' very loosely, because in all honesty their team sucked, like, they were the worst in the entire state. Still, she was a dutiful girlfriend and she would support him anyways… no matter how painful it was at times. It was hard to cheer for a team that had once scored a touchdown on themselves.

Finn was a pretty good boyfriend. Not great, he could be a little dense at times, but he was sweet, and he treated her right. She could trust him. She didn't know how long term, she felt about him, but she liked him and cared for him and for now that was enough. He was a little eager at times, but that was what the celibacy club was for, it gave her an excuse to not go too far, without hurting her reputation. Again, she liked him well enough but she wasn't having sex until she was married.

An old fashioned stance? Yes, but one that she felt strongly about personally. She didn't care what others did, it was their bodies and only they could understand where they were at in their lives in terms of being ready for sex, but for her, she wanted to wait. She wanted to be so in love with someone that when she finally was intimate with them that way, it would be special, a moment and experience that would be theirs and only theirs. She knew it was probably unrealistic, but she hoped that whoever she married one day was like that too.

That didn't mean she didn't like kissing and making out, she did and it was fun, but it wouldn't go any farther than that with her, and that was another thing about Finn that she liked. He understood that about her, she knew that he got frustrated at times, and sometimes she couldn't help but tease him a little bit, she had once actually stopped them so that they could pray. The memory still made her giggle to this day, but despite all of that he understood and he seemed okay with it.

She couldn't imagine being with someone like say… Puck. Finn's asshole of a best friend and Santana's sometimes boyfriend. Everyone knew Puck's reputation, and while there were moments when the guy could be sweet, they were outnumbered and outweighed by the moments where he was a complete jerk.

No, as far as the male populous at McKinley went and even her whole high school experience in general went, she knew that she had lucked out. Maybe Santana was right… a chilling thought, maybe she did think too much and she just needed to stop worrying about things and just enjoy the ride.

**xXx-Scence Break-xXx**

After the bell rang and school was finally out, Quinn made her way over to Finn's locker. He hadn't noticed her yet so she snuck up beside him and then quickly leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He jumps in surprise and then turns to face her, his startled look of confusion quickly morphing into a smile.

"Hey you." She greets her boyfriend.

"Oh, hey Quinn, what's up?"

"You ready to head out?"

He gives her a blank look.

"You know, out. As in schools out, we get to go home." She teases him, "We can head to my place, do some homework, watch a little TV and maybe even have some…" She leans in and whispers in his ear seductively. "Fun."

Finn groans, "I can't I have this… thing I've got to do for Mr. Schuester."

Quinn tilts her head. "What thing?"

Finn looks around in embarrassment and he rubs the back of his head nervously. "Detention… I got detention. So that's why I can't hang out."

Quinn chuckles at his nervousness and smiles at him. "One detention is no big deal Finn, don't worry about it. Text me when you're out and we can hang out later, okay?"

"Actually… it looks like it might be for a while, like a couple weeks, he was kind of on my case."

Quinn looks at him weirdly, "What did you do?" Mr. Schuester was one of the cooler teachers at this school and usually pretty laidback, so Finn must have really done something to have earned a couple weeks detention from him.

"Nothing! Really I swear! I'll talk to him about and see if I can get him to let me off the hook after this first time, cool?"

"Fine…" Quinn says grudgingly, still a little annoyed that her boyfriend got into so much trouble. But she lets him kiss her goodbye anyway and he promises to text her later.

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

Quinn looked up startled by the sound of a car horn right behind her; she quickly turns around and sees a grinning Puck, sitting there in his truck. She rolls her eyes and keeps walking. He slowly pulls up beside her and rolls down the window. "You need a ride babe?"

"No thank you." She replies as she keeps on walking.

"Aw, come on, don't be like that. Let me give you a lift."

"Where's Santana?" She asks, reminding him of his girlfriend.

"No clue, she said she had to do something with Brittany." He shrugs casually, like it's no big deal. Quinn has to hold back a snort, because if Puck knew what it meant when Santana said that she had something to do with Brittany, like she did, his head would probably explode. She also tries very hard to ignore and suppress the pang of jealousy that the images of Santana and Brittany together invoke.

"I'm good Puck, thank you anyway."

"Please, come on. You're my best friend's girl and what kind of guy would I be if I didn't help you out huh?"

Quinn thinks about it for a moment. Maybe this really is just him being nice, and since Finn had been her ride today but had gotten detention, it would be nice to not have to walk home. She lets out a sigh as she walks around to the passenger side of his truck.

"Thanks Puckerman."

"No problem Fabray."

As he drove her to her house they passed the time with some small talk, school, classes, Cheerio's and football practice. All relatively safe topics that neither one of them had to think too deeply about. It was actually pretty nice and Quinn found herself pleasantly surprised by how nice Puck was being. She should have known that it was too good to be true and as he pulled up in front of her house he made his move.

"Sooo… you like, wanna hang out?" a small, devious smile playing on his face.

"No thank you, I'm good." She responds frostily.

"Oh come on," he says as he rests a hand on her knee. "You, me," He starts to slowly run his hand up her legs. "A big, empty house." He raises his brow suggestively.

She grabs his hand and lifts it off her before it reaches her skirt and she looks at him with disdain. "I have a boyfriend." She tells him firmly.

"So?" He shrugs his shoulders in a careless manner.

"And, he's your best friend or at least I thought he was." She would have brought up that he was also dating one of her best friends, but she knew that neither of them were exclusive.

Puck just scoffs, "After high school, do you honestly think either of us is going to remember Finn Hudson? Besides no one has to know."

He leans in to kiss her, but she firmly places a hand against his shoulder and forcefully pushes him back, "I would know." She shakes her head in disgust. "I won't say anything to him this time, but try this again and all bets are off." She says coldly and with that she quickly exits his truck and makes her way into her house without once looking back. When she opens the door she finally hears him pull away.

_'Stupid, Puck never does anything without an ulterior motive.'_ She chastises herself.

As she enters the kitchen she sees her mom standing there, a large wine glass half full, held in one hand.

"Quinnie! You're home! How was your day dear?" the older blonde slurs out as she comes up and hugs her daughter, the smell of alcohol on her breath almost overwhelming. But Quinn just forces a big fake smile on her face and answers.

"It was great mom, how was yours?"

"Oh it was nothing special," She says waving her arms around in a careless gesture, spilling some of the contents of her glass over herself and Quinn. "Oops," She giggles as she looks at the mess.

"Oh no, your uniform, let me see, where's a towel? I know we have them somewhere." She looks around confused.

"It's fine mom, really, don't worry about it. Really, free dry cleaning for Cheerios remember?"

"Oh yeah that's right I forgot, well no worries then." She starts to giggle again.

"Hey so I have a ton of homework, I'll just be in my room if you need me." Quinn says eager for an excuse to be out of the room and away from her mother.

"Oh sure, you go do that and I'll call you down for dinner when it's ready. Love you!" She calls out as Quinn was already halfway up the stairs.

"Love you too." Quinn replies with a fake happy voice, glad that her mother can't see her face and the tears that are welling up in her eyes. She does love her mother, she really does. But it's so hard to be around her when she's drunk like this and she knew it would only get worse.

Judy was a happy drunk early on but as time passed and more alcohol entered her system she got moodier and more depressed. Her father was the same way when he got drunk, he started off happy, but instead of getting depressed he got angry. He wasn't vicious though, he wouldn't chase after you or go looking for you when he got like that and as long as you stayed out of his way it was an easy enough problem to avoid.

_'Well at least she wasn't passed out.'_ She thinks bitterly, which happened more often than not. Her parents were both so caught up in presenting this perfect family image that they neglected to actually make it true. They presented a perfect front for the outside world but at home they seemed to hate life so much that the only way they could function was with a drink in their hands.

Her sister, Francine, wasn't much better. She had married early out of high school, dropping out of college her second semester to be with 'the man of her dreams.' Her parents had absolutely adored him. He was everything that a Fabray should marry into, rich, attractive, and charming. No matter that he was an arrogant asshole. But despite her reservations about him she had held her tongue and played nice. She felt sorry for her sister and thought it was so sad that she was following in their parents footsteps in that manner. The last time she had seen her sister, about two years ago; it had been like looking at an exact replica of their mother.

Well that would not be her, not a chance. She loved her parents, and even her sister, but that would not be her life and her children would never have to put up with that. She swore to herself that they would never have to wonder and worry about what they would be coming home to.

When she got to her room she quickly changed out of her uniform and into one of her dresses and then checked her phone. She was happy to see that she had a text from Finn. So she plops down on to her bed and begins to text him back.

**From: Finn- I h8 this, c%d detention b NE mo borN**

She hated text speak, but she had so far been unsuccessful in getting him to speak normally, and she had all but given up trying.

**From: Quinn- Then don't get in trouble next time, you goof :P**

** From: Finn- note my falt :(**

Quinn laughs and shakes her head.

**From: Quinn- Then who's fault was it?**

** From: Finn- don't kn0**

** From: Quinn- So what are they making you do?**

There is about a ten minute pause before she receives a reply.

**From: Finn- jst lines, SBTA I've got 2 go. I'll TLK 2 U tomorrow, bi**

** From: Quinn- Bye**

Quinn stares blankly at her phone for a few more seconds before getting up and moving over to her desk and turning on her laptop. She had said that she had homework to do so she may as well do it, though in fact nothing was due for another two days. Still, it was better to do something productive rather than just sit around her room and brood.

** A.N. So what did you think? Please feel free to ask me any questions and I'll be happy to answer them. Ideas are welcome as well. Please note that how the characters think and act in the beginning of the story is not how they will at the end of it. I have this story completely mapped out through season three. So it's going to be an AU rewrite of the series. The endgame is Quinntana, but it will be a while before we get there. Also huge Faberry friendship, unholy trinity friendship, Pezberry friendship, Quitt friendship, and some surprising other pairings and friendships as well. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Standard disclaimer, I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

**Chapter 2**

**s**

"Seriously Finn, again!?" Quinn yells at the boy in frustration. "What is going on with you two!? Every time I see you she seems to just magically be there, once maybe twice is a coincidence, but this is ridiculous! Every time I see you, you're with her! What is going on between you two!?"

Quinn was furious, for the last week every single time she caught up with Finn; he was hanging out with Rachel Berry. It was like she had become his very own personal little stalker. She would just randomly pop up and stare at him all starry eyed, and it was really starting to get on Quinn's nerves. She had even had the nerve to show up at celibacy club yesterday and shout out about how girls wanted sex just as much as boys. True, she would concede, if only secretly and to herself, but not the point.

Finn, however, didn't seem to see what the big deal was.

"Nothing, I told you, we were just talking, I swear." He promises her.

She arches a brow at him and scowls, "Look, it may be just talking to you, but she's into you and it's not okay that you keep hanging out with her."

"What, so you're telling me who I can and can't hang out with?" He asks her a little angrily.

She throws her hands up in the air, "You can hang out with whoever the hell you want, but it would be nice if you would act like you remember that _I'm_ your girlfriend! You keep meeting up with her, and talking with her, but you suddenly don't seem to have any free time to spend with me! So seriously, are you hooking up with her!? Because if you are the least you could do is man up and be honest about it!"

Quinn turns away from him angrily, her arms crossed.

"Hey," Finn says soothingly as he embraces her from behind. "I promise you, I _promise_, that there is nothing going on between us. Okay."

Quinn's shoulders sag in defeat. She knows that she's being a little irrational about this. Finn has never given her a reason not to trust him before, but she can't help it. She sees the looks that that girl is giving him, she's obviously into him and sometimes she swears she can see a little something in his eyes when he looks at her too.

She looks down embarrassed and a little scared, she doesn't want to ask this question but she can't help it. "Are you… do you want to break up with me?"

"What!? Of course not." He says gently, he turns her around so that she is facing him and gently lifts her face so that she is staring at him. "You're my girlfriend; I want to be with you."

He then gives her a little half smile, "You have nothing to worry about."

"Really?" She asks, a little smile playing on her face. She really does like him.

"Really." He leans down and kisses her and Quinn can't help but sigh in contentment. They pull apart a minute later.

"Hey I have to go, I'll see you at lunch?" He asks holding her hands in his own, gently swinging them back and forth.

"Yeah." She leans in and they quickly kiss before parting ways_. 'It was stupid to worry,'_ she thinks, feeling much better as she heads to English?

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Okay, so it wasn't stupid to worry. There had been an assembly today and Figgins had announced that the school glee club, "New Directions," were going to sing for them. Quinn hadn't even known that the school had a glee club. A quick look behind her to see the smirk on Santana's and the rest of the cheerios faces had told her that they were all thinking the same thing that she was. This was going to be horribly awful on an epic scale.

Brittany however looked confused and leaned over to speak to her quietly.

"Hey, Quinn?" She whispered.

"Yeah Britt?"

"When did they like, discover new directions?"

"What?"

"Well I mean, I know about the normal directions, you know like West, cause that's where Fieval went to find his family. And I totally know that the opposite of West is East. Plus I remember that the North fought the South, like a thousand years ago to free the slaves from Napoleon and the British. So I know about those directions, but like, what are the _new_ directions? You're super smart, so I figured you'd already know."

Quinn just stared at Brittany for a few seconds, because there was so much wrong with what she had just said that Quinn needed a second to process it.

"Okay first thing Britt," Quinn says nicely, "Remind me to spend more time going over your history notes with you."

"Sure." Brittany shrugs.

"Second, the name of the group is New Directions, it's a glee club, they're going to sing."

"Why would a Geography club sing?"

"What?" Quinn asks even more confused than before.

"They're a _Gee_ club, you know G for Geography, so why would they sing? Unless they're going to sing about going to different countries and stuff which I guess could be kind of cool."

"No, not a G club, a _glee_ club, with an L."

"Oh! So they're like those girls in that _Pitch Perfect movie_, or something like that?"

"I wouldn't count on it B." Quinn answers with a look and a slow shake of her head, conveying just how bad this was probably going to be.

"Oh," Brittany says sounding much less interested. "That's lame."

Quinn one arm hugs Brittany, grinning at her other best friend, "You said it."

Brittany briefly rests her head on Quinn's shoulder smiling before pulling away when the lights dim and the curtains pull back, signaling the start of the performance.

What Quinn saw next wiped any amusement she might have had about the situation. Finn! Her Finn was on that stage, singing _Push It,_ with the rest of those losers, not only that but he was practically having sex with that girl, with… that… that thing! She forces the tears to not form in her eyes, refuses to allow them to happen, but it's hard. He promised her, he swore to her, that there was nothing going on between them. But there he was, basically going at it with her on stage for the entire school to see. And that was another thing, when the hell had he even joined up with them.

She feels a hand on her shoulder and knows it's Santana while another hand grabs one of her own and squeezes it gently, that one belonging to Brittany. She had told them the other day her worries about Finn and how he was hanging out with that MySpace, Berry girl and she knew that they were trying to support her. Brittany was probably already thinking of ways to try and cheer her up and Santana had probably come up with two or three different ways she could kill them both for her and make it look like an accident.

She wishes they would stop. She is grateful for the support, but they were making it harder for her to keep her composure. This was so humiliating and top that off with the feelings of hurt and betrayal, Quinn wanted nothing more than to run crying from the auditorium. But her pride wouldn't let her, it wouldn't let her run, it wouldn't let her cry, and it wouldn't let her look away and so she just kept staring at them, never once tearing her gaze from the scene before her.

**s**

**xXx- Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Unfortunately after the assembly she still had two more classes so she couldn't hunt Finn and that dwarf down like she had wanted to. So she spent the next two hours quietly seething. She must have been putting out some scary, angry vibes because everyone stayed out of her way and even Brittany and Santana were giving her a bit of space.

Which was only a good thing as far as she was concerned. If she was worrying those two then she must be pretty scary right now, and she wanted Finn terrified when she confronted him about this. He had lied to her; he had looked her in the eyes and had promised her that there was nothing going on between him and that girl. He was in so much trouble she didn't even know where to begin. As for that girl, well if she thought that things were bad before, she had absolutely no idea about the storm that was about to hit.

She used to feel a little guilty about how she picked on the girl, not anymore, that went right out the window when she had started thrusting onto her boyfriend like some five dollar whore in front of the entire school. She would make sure and do everything in her power to ensure that the next three years were a living hell for the girl.

The time between the assembly and when the last bell finally rang did nothing to quell her anger. Every second had dragged on like an hour and she found herself getting angrier and angrier. As she got up from her desk and began to storm out the door, intent of finding Finn, she felt a hand gently grab her by the arm.

She turned around, ready to completely destroy whoever was stupid enough to get in her way right now, but managed to stop herself short when she saw that it was Santana and that she and Brittany were both there, just trying to be good friends to her.

"Listen Q, you need any back up on this?" Santana asks.

"No." Quinn replies coolly.

"Look, give me or Britts a call later, alright?"

Quinn just gives a slight nod in response before turning away and leaving to go find her two victims. However as she looked around the school she couldn't find them and nobody seemed to know where they were. She wanted to find Finn first, but she would settle for Berry if she had to. Either way this was getting handled today, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Finally, after twenty minutes of searching, every minute making the blonde girl more upset, she heard a noise coming from the nearby auditorium. It sounded like a piano, and Quinn's eyes widen incredulously. There is no way that even Finn would be so dense as to hang out with her after what happened today. No possible way, even he would have to know that today would have pissed her off.

As she snuck in the back, she found that her suspicions were true; there he was with that girl. They were sitting on some blankets with pillows, talking about something, she couldn't quite hear what, so she crept closer and finally caught the end of what they were saying.

"You, you can kiss me if you want to." Rachel says shyly, hopefully.

"I want to." Is Finn's response, as he moves in slowly and gently lays her down, hovering over her as they begin to kiss.

And as angry as Quinn was, something about this scene caused her entire attitude to shift, and all of her anger morphed into grief. Her eyes filled with tears and she quickly flees the auditorium, completely devastated. Neither Finn or Rachel noticed, too caught up in what they were doing.

Quinn finds herself in front of her locker in an empty hallway, her hands shaking as she cries, making it impossible for her to unlock it. She finally gives up and rests her head against the locker, about ready to just let it all out right then and there, when she hears a quiet voice behind her.

"Hey Fabray." She turns around startled and embarrassed that someone has found her in this state and is mortified to see that it's Puck.

She hastily and angrily wipes the tears from her eyes and growls at him. "What the hell do you want?" She is in no mood to put up with his shit today.

"Look, I came to apologize about how I acted the other day. I was a complete jerk and I wanted to say I'm sorry."

"Great, you've apologized, accepted, now please leave me alone." She turns away from him, hoping that he listens so that he won't see her cry, but instead he grabs her and gently pulls her into a hug. In any other situation, on any other day she would have pushed him away instantly, but her head is everywhere right now so she lets it continue on longer than she should have. Just as she is about to pull away, he begins to speak.

"I'm really sorry about Finn; it wasn't cool that he did that at the assembly. I could tell by the look on your face that it was a bit of a shock, so I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

And that was it for her, she was done. She completely breaks down and lets the other boy hold her. He pulls her close and runs his hands up and down her back soothingly as she cries.

**s**

**xXx- Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

She stumbles into her bedroom, shaking and in a little pain. The room is spinning, and she's having a hard time breathing. It's late, 9:00, luckily both her parents were passed out and she didn't have to deal with them. She makes her way into her bathroom and leans over the sink as she stares at herself in the mirror.

Her eyes are wide and a little blood shot from all of the alcohol. Her uniform was in disarray and her hair in a messy ponytail. As she continues to stare into the mirror, for one brief moment, a rage overtook her. She felt so angry, so furious, that she was just a moment away from blowing up and tearing everything around her apart. But as soon as the moment came, it passed and all that was left was a feeling of self-loathing defeat.

How could she have done that, how could she have been so stupid? So easily swayed, she had, in one brief moment of weakness compromised everything she believed in. Tears begin to well in her eyes and she suddenly feels sick to her stomach. She rushes over and begins to puke, over and over again, releasing the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl.

Her eyes burn as this is happening, the tears falling from her eyes. When she's finally finished she shakily gets to her feet and slowly undresses. Wincing ever so slightly as she does so. She goes to her shower and turns it on hot, near scalding, and steps in.

She had done it, she had had sex. Not even with her boyfriend, but with her boyfriend's best friend and it had been the worst experience of her life. It had been short, painful, and humiliating. And she tries to think through the alcohol induced cloud in her mind on how she had let it happen.

It was just at the school he had been so sweet and so caring and then he had convinced her to go over to his place to 'hang out.'

"Hang out." She scoffs to herself in derision. She had been so stupid and she knew that it was stupid to go there as well, and as soon as they got there she asked to leave but he offered her a drink and had told her that one drink wouldn't hurt and she had given in because after today she really needed one. Well before she knew what was happening, one drink had become two, and two had become three and suddenly she was spilling all of her worries and fears to the guy. And he listened and consoled her, and she just kept talking and talking and drinking and drinking.

And then she had wondered out loud if she was pretty enough, if maybe that was why Finn wanted to be with Rachel, or maybe she wasn't skinny enough, because while she was certainly fit, Rachel was tiny and maybe that was what he was into.

And Puck, he had told her that it was ridiculous, that she was the prettiest girl in school and that any guy would be lucky to have her, and that Finn was an idiot. And she was drunk enough that she fell for it, she actually fucking fell for it. She had thought that it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her.

Quinn reaches for the soap as she remembers what happened next.

Puck then leaned in and kissed her and she didn't stop him. He had wanted her, her, and not Rachel. Unlike her supposedly faithful boyfriend, and if felt nice, and as he kissed her she thought about seeing Finn and Rachel kiss and she kissed him back harder, thinking that somehow this would be the perfect revenge for what Finn had done to her.

And when Puck had slid a hand up her shirt and begin to feel her up she didn't stop him, because maybe that was why Finn cheated on her, because she wouldn't let him do it.

And then finally, finally! He tried to move the action below the belt, and for one glorious moment it had cleared her mind enough to tell him to stop. That she was done, and wanted to go home.

_"No, stop no… no more." She slurred out._

_ He rolled his eyes in frustration at her. "You know maybe this is why Finn went looking around? You're so uptight. Let loose and live a little, what's the worst thing that will happen? Seriously, guys like me and Finn, we're sex sharks. We need to feed and if you don't let us, we go hunting. Calm down and just do what comes naturally, and if you can't do that well then there's the door and don't be surprised when this kind of thing happens to you again and again."_

_And with that he continues on and it's on the tip of her tongue to tell him no, to tell him to go to hell and to push him off her and leave, but he had said all the right things, and pushed all the right buttons, that she hesitated and she found herself asking instead. "What about protection?"_

"_Don't worry about it."_

What followed next was short and painful. She was constantly told how wonderful sex was, how good it felt. By TV, movies, books, hell even her friends had talked about how great it was, but that was not what it had been like for her. He had basically flopped on top of her for a few minutes and then was done and she had been left lying there confused about what had just happened. And then only minutes later, he was basically ushering her out of the house. Telling her that his mom had just gotten home and that she needed to leave because he didn't want her knowing that Quinn was there.

So she had drunkenly stumbled home, dazed and confused and feeling completely awful, and now here she was in this shower with water that just wasn't hot enough trying to wash away this disgusting feeling she was having that just wouldn't disappear no matter how hard she scrubbed.

She finally gets out of the shower when the hot water runs out and doesn't bother getting dressed. She goes to her bed and lies down and notices that her phone is flashing. She blearily reads what it says.

**63: Text Messages**

**12: Missed Calls**

She puts her phone down on the dresser and groans in frustration. She doesn't want to do or deal with anything right now, she just wants to go to sleep and pretend that this awful day never happened.

**s**

**A.N. So I agonized over writing this chapter. I'm not going to really comment on it other than to say that it was ridiculously hard for me to write and I kind of hated every second of it, but I felt it was necessary for the story.**

**I'm going to try and have a new chapter up every Friday, it may not always happen that way, what with school and work keeping me busy, but that's the goal. **

**One final thing, in this story I don't care about real world continuity. And what I mean by that is if I think a song or a movie reference would fit the situation, I'm going to use it, regardless of whether or not it had actually been out at that time. It's in the first season so I think it's like 2009 but if I think that something would fit the situation but it didn't come out till 2012 I would please ask that you just go with it. The point is to tell a good story, not make a historical record.**

**Thanks for taking the time to read my story and I'll see you next Friday.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Standard Disclaimer, I don't own Glee or any of its characters. **

(**Brittany Singing)**

(Santana Singing)

**(Both Girls Singing)**

**Chapter 3**

When Quinn woke up the next morning she was confused and her head felt like it was about to split open. What was going on? And then it all came rushing back to her, everything, Finn and Rachel, the assembly. Puck… Oh God… Puck. So it wasn't just some horrific nightmare that she had imagined.

She glances over at the clock to see how much time she has before she needs to start getting ready and immediately jumps up, which was a huge mistake as her head throbbed at the action. But she was already fifteen minutes late, so she powered through it. How come no one had woken her?

After a quick shower and as she is brushing her teeth, she checks her phone and sees that she now has 75 new messages and 19 missed calls.

"Fuck!" She exclaims as she spits the toothpaste back into the sink.

Most of the messages had come from Brittany and Santana, and they got progressively more frequent and worried. Well Brittany's got more worried, Santana's latest message, sent about an hour ago, had told her that, 'if she wasn't lying in a ditch somewhere, she would be.' Which was Santana speak for 'I'm scared out of my mind, and I was up all night worrying about you.'

But she was shocked to see that about a third of the messages had come from Finn and she wasn't sure how she felt about that.

She however did send out a quick message to all of them letting them know that she was alive.

**To: Santana, To: Brittany, To: Finn- I'm fine, I'll talk to you at school.**

She hesitates hitting send, because right now she is anything but fine, but there is no point in worrying them anymore than she already has. Well no point in worrying Brittany and Santana anymore. She was still trying to work out how she felt about her… boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend…? She just didn't know at this point.

Their responses are immediate.

**From: Santana- You bitch! When I see you, you won't be! Fucking scaring me like that, I love you to death but God dammit, you don't get to scare me like that! You owe me and Britt an explanation, she spent the entire night crying, worrying about you!**

She felt a stab of guilt, on top of everything else, about worrying them so much, and her eyes began to water.

**From: Brittany- R U Ok?! I luv U so mch x1000. Plze dn't ever scare me lke that a-gin! LOVE U so much! Plze plze plze x1000 tlk to us. C U soon.**

She takes a moment and takes a few deep breaths before reading Finn's text.

**From: Finn- I'm glad U R ok! We reely need 2 tlk! C U soon.**

She sneer's at his text, angry. Oh he's glad she's okay, nice of him to care today. Too bad he didn't seem to care yesterday at that assembly, or later when he had his tongue down that dwarf's throat, too bad he didn't care last night when she got drunk and…

Her angry rant is cut short as she recalls that part of yesterday, and any fire that she had was gone. She just felt defeated, like she had hit rock bottom. And she knew, she just knew, that Puck would be spreading it around school that he had slept with her, and that she would have to deal with these smug little grins all day. She almost decided right then and there to skip school today.

But no, she wouldn't be intimidated and she really wanted to see how bad the fallout from yesterday was going to be and just get it over with, rather than stay at home and worry about it.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

She finally reaches the school but had completely missed first period. So she makes her way to her second class of the day which is luckily for her gym, so she'll be able to shower at the end of it, and won't have to smell like she ran the entire way here.

As she enters the locker room she is suddenly engulfed by a hug from Brittany. "Are you okay? What happened?" The taller blonde asks.

"Seriously Q, you left yesterday super pissed, and then dropped off the face of the earth, what's going on?" Santana asks, walking towards her friend with an angry scowl on her face. When she reaches her she crosses her arms and stares expectantly at her friend. "Well, we're waiting."

"San, be nice." Brittany frowns.

"Screw that! We've been going out of our minds, she owes us an explanation!" Here Santana jabs Quinn in the shoulder with her finger, hard. "Start talking."

Yesterday was awful, she was pretty sure she and Finn were through. He had pretty much made that abundantly clear at the assembly yesterday. And any hope she may have had, had been destroyed when she saw him kissing Rachel in the auditorium. She had hurt her two best friends, who were now super pissed at her. Santana looked moments away from hitting her, and even though Brittany was being nice, Quinn could see the look in her eyes and knew she was only doing just better than Santana. She had lost her virginity last night in a completely humiliating and degrading way to a person she didn't even like, and to top it all off, she had been late to school.

She was tired, she was sore, she was hung over and she was embarrassed as well as disgusted with herself and she just didn't have any fight left in her today. So she did the only thing she could do, she fell to her knees and began to sob.

"Oh, shit!" Santana says startled by her reaction. She had expected Quinn to tell her to fuck off, not… this.

"Santana!" Brittany cries at the Latina angrily as she drops down next to the sobbing girl and pulls her into her arms. Quinn clings to Brittany like she's a life line, the only thing keeping her alive, and continues to cry. "I told you to be nice!" The girl is glaring at Santana.

Santana quickly drops down next to the two girls and looks at Quinn nervously. Wanting to hug the girl but afraid of making it worse, so she just kneels there and hovers by her awkwardly.

"I'm… I'm so so sorry, Q. Really… um, you don't… I mean… Um, a little help B."

Brittany holds Quinn close and begins to gently rock them back and forth, not saying a word, just letting the girl cry. After a few minutes pass and Quinn has stopped sobbing she begins to quietly sing to the girl.

**So no one told you life was gonna be this way**

**Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.**

**It's like you're always stuck in second gear**

**When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, but**

**I'll be there for you **

**When the rain starts to pour **

**I'll be there for you **

**Like I've been there before**

**I'll be there for you **

**'Cause you're there for me too **

Quinn lets out a soft giggle at Brittany's song choice, and Brittany holds her a little more tightly at the sound, a happy smile on her face. Glad that she's making Quinn feel a little better.

**You're still in bed at ten and work began at eight **

**You've burned your breakfast, so far things are going great **

**Your mother warned you there'd be days like these **

**But she didn't tell you when the world has brought you down to your knees and**

Santana reaches over and holds one of Quinn's hands in her own and then adds her voice in with Brittany's for harmony.

**I'll be there for you **

**When the rain starts to pour **

**I'll be there for you **

**Like I've been there before **

**I'll be there for you **

**'Cause you're there for me too **

No one could ever know me

No one could ever see me 

Seems you're the only one who knows what it's like to be me

**Someone to face the day with, make it through all the rest with **

**Someone I'll always laugh with **

**Even at my worst, I'm best with you, Yeah**

At this point Quinn has stopped crying and is just content to let her to friends hold her and sing to her. She is finally starting to feel a little better. And a surge of gratitude towards these two girls rushes through her. She leans into Brittany a little more, and squeezes Santana's hand affectionately.

**I'll be there for you **

**When the rain starts to pour **

**I'll be there for you **

**Like I've been there before**

**I'll be there for you **

**'Cause you're there for me too**

Both girls softly draw out the last note and then let it quietly fade. Quinn is staring at them in gratitude and amazement. "I can't believe you guys just sang the Friends song." Quinn laughs as she wipes the last of the tears from her eyes.

"Whatever, you know that show rocks." Santana says rolling her eyes. "Besides we kicked that songs ass, so what ev's."

"Well that's because we're awesome." Brittany throws in. The three girls then get up off the floor.

"So Quinn, you totally don't have to, but if you want to you can tell us what happened yesterday." Brittany says kindly. "But only if you want to."

She can't tell them everything; she just can't, as much as she wants to. She feels so ashamed and drained by what happened with Puck that she doesn't ever want anyone to find out. That's probably not a viable option but she'll keep it a secret for as long as she can. She already looks at herself differently, and not in a good way, but she can't stand the thought that they might look at her differently too. Still she did owe them some kind of explanation so she decides to tell them the bit about Rachel and Finn.

"After I left class yesterday I went to find Finn. I mean you guys saw that assembly; you saw how bad it was. He had just told me that morning that there was nothing going on and then I have to see that. I was out for blood, you know." She tells them looking down.

Quinn shrugs her shoulders, "Well I found him. He and man-hands were making out in the auditorium, and I don't know it just really got to me. I kind of freaked out and I just I couldn't deal with it… I'm, I'm sorry guys." She finishes lamely.

"I'm going to kill him, seriously. Both of them, no way they get away with this!" Santana fumes.

Brittany looks Quinn right in the eyes, and in a deadly serious voice she tells her. "What do you need us to do? I'm serious, whatever you need."

"Nothing for now."

"What!?"

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure you guys. Look Finn wants to talk so I'm pretty sure he's going to break up with me today. I just want to get it over with and move on with my life."

"No!" Brittany says upset. "No, he doesn't get to break up with you! Don't let him, you break up with him first, he doesn't get to cheat on you and then break up with you, so you break up with him first. You're totally a strong kickass woman and you need to confront him."

"B's right, take the initiative and drop humpty dumpty like a sack of potatoes." Santana agrees with Brittany.

"You guys think?" Surprised that she hadn't actually thought of doing that herself.

"Yeah Q, kick some ass."

"Totally."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

It was lunch time before Quinn finally found Finn, or he found her anyway. She was at her locker grabbing her books when he heard him call out to her.

"Hey Quinn!" He runs up to her with a smile on his face, but stops short when he sees the glare that she is giving him and his smile falters a bit.

Just as she's about to tear into him, he surprises her by pulling out a bouquet of flowers and handing them to her. "Look, I know you're mad at me about the assembly and you have every right to be, but please let me explain."

This is so not what she was expecting from him that she is a little stunned and so she motions for him to continue.

"I should have told you about glee club, but I knew how you would react. You would have been pissed off and forced me to quit, and the thing is, yeah it's kind of lame at times but it's also really cool and I really like it. Plus I was worried that you would make fun of me, your opinion matters to me, I mean I know that sometimes I don't listen, and I'm not the brightest tool in the shed but I do listen to you, and what you say and think about me is important to me. So I was really worried that, you know, you would think less of me, so I lied to you and I told you I had detention with Mr. Schuester when in reality I was at glee club rehearsal."

"I wouldn't have made fun of you." Quinn mumbles looking down and Finn just gives her a look because they both knew that was a lie.

"You would have teased me relentlessly and we both know it," Finn says smiling at her.

"Okay, you're right I would have, and I would have made you quit, you're right about that as well. But Finn that still doesn't excuse what you did, you promised me that there was nothing going on between you and Rachel and then you guys did that dance and-"

"Woe, the dance was just choreography! Mr. Schue wanted us to do this really bad disco number, I mean like really bad. We would have been murdered out there, and we would have ruined any chance we had at getting new members. And we need more people really bad, if we don't have at least twelve people to perform we can't compete and then the clubs over. So Rachel came in-"

Finn paused after mentioning Rachel's name because of the way that Quinn was scowling at the mere mention of her. "Look I know you don't like her and she can be a little intense at times, but she's nice, and anyway she came to us with this idea to do this song to really grab people's attention. And it worked I mean you saw right? Everyone was cheering at the end of it."

Quinn thought her head would explode when she heard him saying that Rachel was nice. She knew just how nice Finn thought Rachel really was, she saw first-hand how nice Finn thought she was and just as she was about to bring it up he started talking again.

"But the thing is, nobody has tried out yet. So I was thinking, maybe you could join up."

The suggestion was so ridiculous that it actually pushed all other thoughts from her mind and all she could do was half scream, "What!? You can't be serious!?"

Finn rubs the back of his head, "Well yeah, I mean I know you have a great voice, I've heard you sing at your church and I know that you're mad that I haven't been spending as much time with you so I thought that this would be a great way to do it. We could spend the time together and you'll see that it's really a lot of fun. So what do you say, will you do it?" Finn asks hopefully.

"Won't that cut back into your singing time with Rachel?" She asks scathingly, eager to get the topic back onto her so that she can call him out on kissing her.

"Rachel is just a friend, and I really want to sing with you."

"Just a-"

"Please Quinn?" Finn pleads with her. "I know you're mad at me, and I hate it. I hate that you're mad at me. Please tell me what to do so that things can go back to normal with us."

And it was that word right there that stopped Quinn from confronting him. Normal. She wanted so badly for things to go back to the way they were before he joined that stupid club, before she saw him kissing Rachel, before she slept with Puck.

She looks down ashamed, and her shoulders sag in defeat. How can she confront him about kissing another girl, when she considers what she just did last night? She wants so badly to be angry at him, she wants to yell and scream and rage and blame him for everything. But she can't, she made a decision last night, and it's one she'll have to live with for the rest of her life. But here and now, despite everything, he is unknowingly giving her a way to get things back to normal.

She looks up at him and smiles though it looks painful. "Fine." She groans out. "I'll join your club."

He grins at her and then embraces her in a huge hug. "Really this is great! Thank you so much Quinn, you're the best."

"Finn, you're smashing my flowers."

"Oops, sorry!" He steps back a little embarrassed but the boyish smile never leaves his face.

"Listen… Finn I…" She hesitates, she wants to tell him what happened, she wants to tell him that she knows what he did as well, but she just can't do it. She should, she knows she should but she chickens out. She just can't do it, she knows she's being a coward, that she should just step up and get everything out and in the open but she just can't. _'Maybe I'm more like my mother than I thought.'_ She thinks to herself disappointedly.

"Yeah?" He asks as he holds her hand smiling.

"I… Will you walk me to class?" She finishes lamely, absolutely disgusted with herself.

"Sure."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

"You did what!" Santana yells at her. School has just ended for the day and she had finally told Santana and Brittany what had happened with Finn. "No seriously, are you out of your fucking mind!?"

"Are you sure this is what you want Quinn?" Brittany asks worriedly. "If you want, me and San can go with you right now and you can end things."

"I don't want that, I just, I want things to go back to the way they were. So I've decided to forgive him, everyone makes mistakes and I need to remember that." She says, thinking more about her own mistake than his.

"Wow," Santana says slowly and incredulously, "He must have had one hell of an excuse for why he kissed treasure-trail."

"He doesn't know I know." Quinn tells Santana, unable to meet her eyes.

"You're kidding right?" Santana asks, unable to believe what she had just heard. "This asshole causes you to take a quick leap off the deep end and you just forgive him. You just let him off scot free, and he doesn't even know you know!? He's just going to keep on going, thinking that he got away with it and will probably do it again and-"

"Stop! Okay, just stop. I know alright, but this is what I want. You said," she then turns to look at Brittany. "You both said that you would support me in this, so that is what I'm asking you to do. You don't have to like my decision but I'm asking that you accept it. Please." She begs them. "I just want to put this whole thing behind me."

Brittany looks frustrated but finally lets out sigh, "Fine," she then smiles sadly at Quinn. "If this is what you want."

"I'm not happy with this Q, I think that this is a stupid idea, and I don't like it. But fine, if this is the choice you've made then I won't go against it."

"Thank you, both of you. And now I have to ask you both something much harder."

"Harder than asking us to watch you let yourself be screwed ove-" Santana is interrupted by an elbow from Brittany.

Quinn decides to ignore the comment and continues on as if Santana had said nothing. "Finn asked me to join the glee club with him and I said yes."

The looks of horror on their faces would have been priceless if it weren't for the fact that she was feeling the exact same way about it on the inside as well.

"I need to keep an eye on Finn and make sure that that girl stays away from him, and so I was hoping that…?" She looks at them meaningfully.

"NO! no, no, no, no, no! Uh uh, no way, not happening! Not a chance!" Santana refuses vehemently as soon as she understands where Quinn is going with this.

Quinn looks to both of her friends and silently begs them to say yes. Brittany gets a pained expression on her face and then turns to Santana.

Santana looks at Brittany in horror. "NO!"

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

The three girls stand outside of the choir room. Mr. Schuester was inside writing in some notebook and hadn't noticed them standing outside the room.

"He hasn't noticed us yet Q, there is still time to walk away and pretend this never happened." Santana quietly begs her. Brittany is looking at her with big hopeful eyes, hoping and praying that Quinn will agree. She gives them an apologetic smile, she's asked a lot of them today, and is so grateful for all that they have done.

"Damn it, fine, so what, we just go in there and sing?"

"Actually I was thinking that we needed to put on a little show, I mean yeah this club is the lamest idea in the world but if we're going to be here we might as well rule it."

Santana and Brittany nod, seeing her point. "So what did you have in mind?" Brittany asks.

"Say a Little Prayer," is Quinn's response.

Santana scoffs, "You mean that lame ass thing we did when we were twelve?" They had done a Julia Roberts night at a sleepover once when they were twelve and had seen _My Best Friend's Wedding_, for the first time and had loved it. And so that night they had come up with a dance routine for that song and had actually won a church talent competition with it.

"It's a high school glee club, he'll just be grateful we're there and can carry a tune. But why not surprise him by being awesome?"

"And this is awesome?" Santana asks her pointedly. She was actually okay with the audition choice, she really didn't care what they did, but she was still a little pissed at Quinn for making her come to this thing so she was arguing for the sake of arguing.

"Again, it's a high school glee club." Quinn points out, aware of what Santana is doing and is just grateful that the girl had showed up at all.

"Fine, point taken… I can't believe I'm about to do this." Santana mutters under her breath.

"Just picture me in my underwear." Brittany smiles at her.

"Brittany!" Santana quietly exclaims while looking around nervously, her eyes quickly settle on Quinn, before finally moving back on to the other blond.

Quinn holds back a giggle at her friends red face and looks away pretending that she hadn't just heard that, which she knows Santana is grateful for. Her friend just isn't ready for anyone, not even her best friend, to know that about her. Not yet at least, so Quinn can at the very least pretend she doesn't notice. Even when it's blatantly obvious that she had. She gives them a minute to work out whatever it is they are whispering about, before drawing their attention.

"You girls ready?" Quinn asks them.

"Sure." Brittany says as she skips through the door into the choir room.

"Let's just get this over with." Santana grumbles, still red faced, as she moves forward. As she does she does she subtly nudges Quinn, a barely there smile of gratitude on her face.

"Hello Mr. Schuester." Quinn greets the startled man, as they file in before him.

"Oh Miss. Fabray, Miss. Lopez, and Miss… Pierce, what can I do for you?" He asks smiling.

"Why Mr. Schue, we're here to join glee club." Quinn answers with a big fake smile on her face as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. She really owes her friends for this.

**s**

** A.N. So the song was obviously "I'll Be There For You" originally by the Rembrandts. However the version sung is more akin to the Boyce Avenue cover of the song. Much softer, and more intimate. Give it a listen if you feel so inclined. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's the next chapter, and I hope you enjoy. Standard disclaimer I don't own Glee or any of its characters, or any other mentioned series in this chapter.**

**S**

"Um Mr. Shcuester?"

"Yes Brittany?" He answers her with a little bit of exasperation in his voice, because this would be the fifth time in the last twenty minutes the blond had interrupted him while he was trying to show them the dance moves for the song.

"I was wondering if this was really the best choice to go with, cause like the whole step clap thing works if you use it sparingly but this is kind of repetitive."

Rachel raises her hand and then begins to speak as well. "I must agree with Brittany, perhaps something with a little more _oomph_ would be better."

Brittany nods her head excitedly, glad that Rachel sees her point. "Maybe we could do something like this instead." And with that proceeds to do an extremely complex series of steps, twirls, and kicks that even she and Santana would have had a hard time keeping up with it.

Quinn had learned early on in their friendship that while the other blond might be a little slow on the uptake and easily confused at times, when it came to dancing and choreography she was a prodigy. Quinn casts a subtle glance at Santana who is watching the blond with such adoration that it brings a smile to Quinn's face.

They had been in glee club two weeks now and Brittany had taken to glee like a duck takes to water. She absolutely loved it, she loved the singing and the dancing and she wasn't terrified of Mr. Schuester like she was of coach Sylvester. She was constantly looking up new songs to sing and try out. As far as Brittany was concerned joining glee was the best thing that they had done, and she had actually thanked Quinn for asking her to join.

If Brittany loved it then Santana hate, _hate, HATED, _it. The only thing that kept her from murdering Quinn in her sleep for making her do this was how happy it made Brittany. According to Santana, in addition to being completely lame, she had never seen such a group of whiners and it really got on her nerves. And Quinn had to agree with the girl. In cheerios if they acted the way that these guys did they would be cut from the team, no questions asked. You showed up, shut up and did as you were told. These guys, however, were constantly complaining about something, the dance moves, the song choices, _solos!_

If there was any subject that was going to cause an argument it was solo's. Each and every person in the club felt like they were the stars, that the club couldn't function without them, that they were the most talented person in the room. Most of the female leads and solo's went to Rachel and a lot of people felt that it was unfair. And Quinn could see where they were coming from… up to a point. Mercedes, Kurt, Tina, and Rachel all had amazing voices, however out of all of them only Rachel ever seemed to work for it. The girl seemed to spend all of her free time practicing her vocals, working on her dancing, and looking up songs, not only for herself, but the entire group. Rachel wanted it and she worked for it.

And as much as she despised the girl, she could respect that. In cheerio's Quinn was the youngest captain in a decade and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Especially some of the older girls who felt that they deserved the position more. However Quinn had spent her entire summer after freshman year practicing and training. She went to Sylvester's summer camps and never missed a single day and when they were over for the day she had stayed after and gotten even more training. She wanted the top spot and so she had worked her ass off for it, they hadn't.

It was one of the few things that she liked about coach Sylvester's style. Say what you will about the woman, she didn't play favorites. Age and seniority didn't matter to her, winning mattered and so if you were the best person for the job, you got it. Quinn knew she wasn't the best in every area and so did coach Sylvester. Santana was a better tumbler, and Brittany could physically outperform everyone on the field, however Quinn was the most rounded. She could fill in for everyone on the squad at a moment's notice and it wouldn't adversely affect the routine. And Quinn was proud to say, and even a little smug, that no one else could do that. That was why coach had made her captain, she wasn't always the best in one area, but she was the best at everything.

Quinn had worked for her spot in cheerios and Rachel was working for hers' in New Directions. And so as far as Quinn was concerned, although it killed her to say this let alone think it, Rachel deserved what she got. The only person in the club right now that was giving the girl a run for her money was Brittany, and rather than pout or complain about the extra competition, like certain other members of the club, Rachel seemed to take it as a challenge and worked that much harder.

Rachel Berry was still a loud, obnoxious, boyfriend stealing skank as far as Quinn was concerned but at least she was one that she could respect. Unfortunately for the small brunette Mr. Schuester didn't have coach Sylvester's attitude towards placing people. The poor guy was trying to be fair to everyone, but he also wanted to win. To win you featured the best, to be fair you let everyone play and the two sides were at war inside him and you could tell.

Another problem with Mr. Schue was that he was stuck in his head about what this group should be. He wanted it to be just like it was back when he was a kid and so he had a hard time doing anything different from that. It was a little astonishing that someone who wanted to win as badly as he did; who needed to place at regionals for his club to even survive till next year, was so resistant to new ideas. Coach Sylvester was insane, and you did things her way, but if you showed her something that worked better than what she was doing she would switch in an instant. She might… more than likely would, take credit for the idea herself but again it was whatever worked with the woman.

Mr. Schuester was slowly getting better though… slowly, as where Sylvester would probably never change so Quinn couldn't complain. As far as male vocals went, there really wasn't much drama. Kurt wanted most of the female solo's so he rarely tried for the male vocals, and Finn and Artie were pretty chill about it. She had actually seen the two play rock, paper, scissor for a part once.

As for Quinn, the club wasn't the punishment that she thought it was going to be. She was the head cheerleader so she didn't feel the need to fight for a leading part, she had her place in this school and was happy with it. Besides she wasn't the strongest vocally, and she knew that. She had only joined this club so that she could keep an eye on Finn and the dwarf. So she was pretty okay with her backup role. It irked her a little bit because she was a performer and she did like being in the spot light, but she didn't work for it and she had cheerios so it only stung her pride a little and she obviously didn't care enough to try harder.

The big downside to joining the club was that it didn't seem to be doing any good. She tried to her best to ignore it, or run interference but no matter what she did Finn couldn't seem to stay away from Rachel. They hadn't hooked up again, at least not to her knowledge but it didn't stop the longing stares and the awkward moments when one of them would be singing and then start to sing to the other. Quinn was at a bit of a loss and wasn't sure what to do, so she did nothing. She just kind of stood there and ignored it and hoped that the situation would go away.

As Brittany finished her routine most of the club stared at her in shock. Kurt and Mercedes jaws had dropped, Tina looked ready to faint, and Finn and Artie looked terrified that Mr. Schuester would actually make them do it. Santana had a little smirk on her face. Rachel however, was staring at the blond appraisingly as if she was seriously considering whether or not to go with the blonde's routine.

"That's… wow, that was great Brittany. But… I think we're going to stick with what I have planned." Mr. Schue says trying to let the girl down easy.

Brittany's smiling face falls in disappointment and it actually hurts a little to see, so Quinn decides to step in. This was a perfect example of Mr. Schuester not being willing to make any changes. And while Quinn would agree that those steps were too advanced for most of the people in this club, he had not once taken any of Brittany's ideas seriously since they had arrived and it was starting to piss her off.

"Mr. Schue, no offense but these dance moves you want us to do are lame. We won't be winning any competition, let alone sectionals, with what you have us doing. We should change it up a bit. Brittany's the best dancer I know; let her show you what she can do."

Brittany smiles at Quinn gratefully.

"Quinn's right Mr. Schuester," Rachel throws in; both girls throw each other a look that clearly states that neither of them can believe that Rachel had just said that. "You saw how Vocal Adrenaline danced the other day, if we want any chance of beating them we need to 'step up' our game as well." Rachel moves over next to Mr. Schuester and faces the rest of the club.

"Now Brittany that was a fantastic performance, unfortunately it was a little too advanced for most of the people of this club," Obviously indicating that she wasn't one of those people. "But if you slowed it down, and maybe if we worked together you and I could have a routine down that could easily be done, and look spectacular."

Brittany looks really excited at the prospect and then glances at Quinn apologetically, silently begging Quinn to not be mad at her for wanting to work with Rachel. Quinn rolls her eyes in annoyance, but nods to the girl to let her know that it was okay.

Brittany grins at her before turning to Rachel. "That sounds great, maybe instead of-"

"Guys!" Mr. Schuester yells out, frustrated at the turn things were taking and wanting to gain back control of the club. "I know some of you aren't thrilled with this choreography, but it's what I have planned and it will work. Trust me; we used this routine to take sectionals my junior year. So if everyone could get back to their positions, I would greatly appreciate it."

He waits a few moments as Rachel and Brittany head back to their spots before starting again from the beginning. Rachel looks frustrated and Brittany looks like a kicked puppy. Santana reaches over and rubs the girls arm affectionately and Brittany gives her a disappointed smile before returning her attention to Mr. Schue.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

As glee came to an end for the day, the kids all left the club in various degrees of frustration. Santana and Quinn were waiting by the door for Brittany who was currently in conversation with Rachel.

"I'm not sure how I feel about Britts chillin with treasure trail. Isn't it against the laws of nature or something?" Santana asks.

Quinn scoffs at that, "Brittney can be friends with whoever she wants; we may not always like her choices but still. And it could be worse." She finishes with a shrug.

"How could it possibly be worse?" Santana stares at the girl in shock. "I mean seriously, you hate show tune Barbie."

Quinn smirks, "True, but in all honesty if she's going to be friends with any of these people at least it's someone I can respect."

"You… respect her?"

"I respect her ambition, I can understand wanting something so badly that you'll do anything you can to get it. Don't get me wrong I still can't stand her, but I can respect her."

"Whatever." Santana says, conceding the point.

Quinn smirks, "I'm more worried about Streisand getting B hooked on some sort of old lame ass musical than I am about them being friends."

Santana shudders in horror. "You don't think that's possible do you?"

Quinn just arches her brow in response and says two words. "Jonas Brothers."

Santana bangs her head against the wall in frustration. "Damn it."

Whenever Brittany found a new obsession, both Quinn and Santana had to suffer through it with her. The difference was Quinn could tell Brittany no, Santana couldn't. So Quinn could get a break from whatever the blond was into, Santana had to suffer through it until the blond got either bored or found a new obsession. Sometimes it worked out well, Buffy the Vampire Slayer anyone? That had been a great obsession for the girl to have and Quinn had enjoyed every minute of it with her.

Of course she got to be the Buffy of the trio, so that may have helped her opinion. Brittany said she felt safe around Quinn and people were safe with Buffy, so that's who she was. Plus they both were kick ass, blondes. It was actually one of the sweetest things Brittany had ever said to her, and that was saying something. Brittany was practically made of sugar at times.

Brittany was Willow because according to her she could understand her cat and that was kind of like magic, plus various other reasons that she wasn't allowed to share because she promised Santana, so she got to be Willow. Santana had thought she was Spike, but both Quinn and Brittany agreed in secret that she was Xander. Loyal and protective of her friend, but not nearly as cool as she thought she was, but still completely loveable and a bit of a badass at times… okay and maybe just a little bit of Spike.

Unfortunately not every obsession had been as good as that one and the Jonas Brothers had been the blondes' last obsession. She was currently on a down time, nothing specific had really caught her interest, glee club excluded. But Brittany was one of those people who just loved life and just about everything in it and so found new interests very easily.

Brittany skipped up to them and then looked at Quinn, while biting her lip nervously. "Um Quinn… I know you don't like her, and I would totally understand if you didn't want me to, and totally hated me for wanting to, but Rachel invited me over to her place so that we could work on a routine and show it to Mr. Schuester, and maybe he'll change his mind. So would you hate me if I went?"

Quinn smiles kindly at Brittany, "I could never hate you B, you go have fun, and maybe make sure I get a solo or something hmm?"

Brittany beams at her and then pulls her into a hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, and you are totally getting a solo part! Are we still on for tonight San?" She asks as she turns her attention to the Latina.

"Yeah sure." Santana grumbles.

"Don't be grumpy; I'll be over at seven-ish, maybe eight. See you guys later." Brittany reaches over and briefly squeezes Santana's hand affectionately before she skips back over to Rachel and the two leave talking rapidly between themselves.

Santana has a little smile on her face and sighs. "Well, should we go?"

"Sure."

"Q, LOPEZ, MY OFFICE NOW!" The two girls turn around startled and see at the end of the hallway coach Sylvester glaring at them. She then turns around and begins to walk to her office.

Santana turns to Quinn and gives her a dirty look. "She sounds pissed, even for her. If this is about us being in glee club, and you know it is, I'm going to kill you. I mean it, they won't find your body."

Quinn follows behind the girl and idly wonders if Santana will ever forgive her for this… probably not. Her friend could hold a grudge. Still she wouldn't be Santana if she didn't and her anger was only scary if you didn't know her as well as Quinn did.

Quinn catches up to Santana and pulls her aside. "Listen San, I know you're angry at me. And I've apologized over and over again. What can I do to make it right, so that you're not mad at me anymore? You're my best friend and I hate that you're mad at me. If this is about glee club, if you hate it that much then please quit, I am so grateful that you joined up for me and I love you for it. But I don't want you to be miserable, so quit."

Santana glares at Quinn. "You think that this is about the fucking glee club? Damn it Q, if I really hated it as much as I say I do I would quit. I joined for you and I'm staying for you, but seriously I'm also staying for Brittany, you see how much she loves it, and…" Santana lets out a sigh. "Don't you ever repeat this, like ever, seriously but… I kind of like it too. I know I bitch about it and complain, but that's just me. If I really, really hated it I would quit."

Santana runs a hand through her hair. "I'm mad at you Querida because I think you staying with Finn is a mistake. I don't know what's going on with you lately but the Quinn I know would never put up with the bullshit that he's put you through, and that he continues to put you through. The guy cheated on you and yet you drop everything to be with him. And guess what, you being in glee club, you not confronting him, you not letting him know how much he hurt you, it's not good. This isn't going to end well for you, you're ignoring it but you being there hasn't stopped the stupid looks going on between those two. You're setting yourself up to be hurt and I hate it. That's why I'm mad at you because you're being a doormat for this guy and you're setting yourself up to get hurt, again, and I can't do a thing about it. I just, I want to know why, why are doing all of this, why are you letting him get away with this? Why are you so determined to be with this guy, when we both know that it's only a matter of time before he tries to get it back on with the dwarf? Please tell me why?"

Santana wipes a tear from her eye and continues to glare at Quinn. And it's on the tip of her tongue to tell her everything. To tell her what happened with Puck and how she still feels so embarrassed and disgusted by what happened. But she feels guilty, again she knows that the two aren't exclusive but she still betrayed her best friend by doing it and she betrayed her beliefs. She feels sick inside. She has all of these emotions whirling through her and the only thing that is keeping her sane is this pretense of normality. She knows that she is slowly losing Finn, she knows that keeping all of this inside is killing her but she can't bring herself to destroy this pretty façade that she is living.

But it's Santana and she has spent the last two weeks absolutely hating herself. Hating what she did, a hating how she feels. She's clinging to Finn because maybe by staying with him things would go back to normal. It's pathetic but she still sometimes wants to cry about that night, and in secret where no one can see her, has. She can't look at herself in the mirror without seeing a slut who's willing to spread her legs just because she's had a bad day. And everything that she used to be able to just shrug off seems to be that much harder. But it doesn't seem to matter how hard she tries, everything seems to be slipping away anyway, and as she looks at her best friend she suddenly can't hold it in anymore and she begins to talk.

"I know I've been weird lately… I," Quinn takes a deep breath and then lets out a sigh. "Santana I have something to tell you… I-"

"Q, LOPEZ WHEN I TOLD YOU I WANTED TO SEE YOU IN MY OFFICE I MEANT NOW!"

Quinn shakes her head in defeat, coach Sylvester's interruption robbing her of her courage. "Never mind, it's not important. Let's go, you know how much coach hates to be kept waiting."

"Fuck her, talk to me Querida. What's been going on with you? Is it your parents, are things… are things getting worse at home?"

Things at home had in fact been getting worse, or maybe things were the same and she was just being more sensitive than usual. Whatever the case, she would go to her grave before she would tell Santana what was going home at home. Her father was having trouble at work, some business deal wasn't going through, so he was drinking even more. And when he drank more, her mother drank more. This time looked like it was going to be a particularly nasty bender. Still she was good at avoiding her parents when they got like this and she had weathered situations like this before. Besides telling Santana would only cause trouble.

If she told Santana then the girl would try to do something about it. It would be sweet and brave and it would be so like her to come in and try to save the day, but it would ultimately be useless. She had tried once when she was younger, just before she moved to Lima, to tell a teacher about things at home. She had hoped that they would talk to her parents and get them to stop drinking so much. But her parents were rich as well as influential members of the community and all that came of her telling was a broken nose, "an accident," and moving here to Lima.

No she was better off keeping her head down and not making waves, she had learned her lesson, telling people didn't help and only caused her trouble. She only had three years of this to go. Three years until she could leave for college, three years until she was free. She loved her parents, despite everything she loved them, but right now they weren't good people and her best bet at survival was ignoring them and focusing on going to a college far away. She was used to it, the problem for her right now wasn't her parents, it was Puck.

She still can't stop thinking about that night. She still feels ashamed of what she did and she just can't seem to get passed it. The only plus side to that night is that she hasn't seen or heard from him since then. However she's constantly worried that he'll suddenly show up and start telling everyone what happened, that he'll destroy this façade that she's so desperately clinging to. But luckily nothing has happened so far and so she keeps praying that that doesn't change.

"Things at home are the same as ever San. Not great, but fine, so don't worry about it."

"Look no offense, I know that they're your parents, but they're both drunk assholes… You would tell me if things got bad wouldn't you?"

Quinn smiles at her friend gratefully and affectionately squeezes her arm. "Things are fine, I know I've been acting weird lately and I'm sorry. I've just been stuck in my head a little bit, I'll get over it."

"You know you can talk to me about anything right, that… damn it, I hate this mushy stuff, but you know I've got your back right?"

"But you're so good at the mushy stuff." Quinn teases the girl.

"Shut up." Santana rolls her eyes.

Quinn laughs, "Are you still mad at me?"

"No… we're cool," Santana smirks at her. "I'm still going to give you shit for dating the Jolly Green Giant."

"I wouldn't expect anything less." Quinn says, glad that her and Santana had worked things out. She knew her friend had been worrying about her but she hadn't realized how much. She would have to work harder to make sure that she didn't have a reason to.

The two girls step into coach Sylvester's office wary of what it is that the woman wants.

"Fabray, Lopez, next time I say I want you in my office I better not have to wait, understood?"

"Yes coach." The two girls say in unison.

"Good, now I want to talk to you about this new club you've joined."

**S**

** A.N. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, you'll see what coach Sylvester asked them to do next time… not like it will be some big surprise, but for the sake of my ego please pretend that it's some huge cliff hanger lol. So thanks for reading my story and the next chapter will be up next Friday.**

**Also I saw Dianna's new movie **_**The Family**_** last night, I won't do spoilers or anything but I will say that with one exception it was a fantastic film, and that I really enjoyed it. If you're curious about what I thought about it go ahead and scroll down, if not please stop here, because there is a little bit of a spoiler, nothing specific but I know how some people can be about those kinds of things and I don't want to ruin anything for anyone.**

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**There that should be enough space, if you're here then this is a little bit of spoilers for the film. This is your last chance to turn back… No? Okay then, like I said great movie, however Dianna's story in the film is a little sad and doesn't get a resolution, so that was the one thing that I was disappointed with. She acted brilliantly though and kicked some serious ass. But yeah, no resolution to what she goes through and so I left feeling disappointed and upset with that. Take that and do with it what you will, I still say go and see it, but be prepared. **


	5. Chapter 5

**Standard disclaimer, I do not own Glee or any of its characters. Here it is, chapter 5 and I hope you enjoy.**

**s**

It was early morning, 5:30, and Quinn and Santana were jogging slightly behind Brittany talking quietly between themselves. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday the three girls got together and did their morning workouts. They were halfway through their run and Quinn and Santana were no closer to thinking of a way out of Sylvester's plan to destroy glee club, than they were yesterday.

Yesterday the two girls had been called into her office and told in no uncertain terms that if they didn't help destroy the glee club they were off the cheerio's. Now normally it wouldn't be an issue, they would do what was asked of them and be done with it. The problem was Brittany, she loved the club, and they both knew that if they actually succeeded in destroying it that it would hurt the blond.

"So what are we going to do?" Santana whispers to her. "I've been up all night trying to think of what to do or a way out of this and I've got nothing. I mean I don't want to be kicked off the cheerios, but you've seen how much B loves glee."

"I'm not sure, I was up all night looking up the different show choir rules, and we're still three people short of being able to compete, and it doesn't look like anyone else with be joining anytime soon, so really we don't have to do anything. But we both know that that won't be good enough for coach. I've got nothing-"

"Hey you two, hurry up slowpokes." Brittany shouts at them.

"We'll worry about it later." Quinn tells the other girl as she speeds up to catch up with Brittany, Santana following close behind.

"So Quinn, Rachel and I came up with this really cool Taylor Swift medley, and I got Rachel to give you the lead part! You might have to do a duet with her, but it should be awesome."

Quinn looks at Brittany in shock. "That's great B, you didn't have to do that, and what about you? You worked on it so you should sing it."

"Oh I've got some cool back up parts and I did most of the choreography so I'm good, Rachel did most of the music stuff, besides you asked me to so you wouldn't be mad at me for hanging out with her, remember?"

"B, I was kidding about that, you can be friends with whoever you want, you're my bestie no matter what."

"Really?"

"Really, I could never be seriously mad at you, at least never so mad that I would stop being friends with you."

"So you wouldn't hate me if I started being friends with Rachel too?" Brittany asks her hopefully.

"I told you B, you can be friends with whoever you want. I can't promise that I'll ever like her, but your friendship with her won't affect ours, okay." Quinn tells the other blond, a smile on her face.

"Good, I'm glad, cause I really like her but I wouldn't want you to be mad at me." Brittany gives her an appraising look before grinning, "You're still getting the solo part."

Quinn laughs. "You don't have to give it to me Britts, but thanks anyway."

"No seriously, I had Rachel write it in your vocal range and everything, you usually just kind of sway in the background and I know it kind of annoys you at times so I want this for you. Besides you stood up to Mr. Schue for me and I also really love your voice, so please say you'll do it."

"Sure B, and thanks, I appreciate it and I can't wait to hear it."

Brittany affectionately bumps Quinn's shoulder.

"Hey what about me?" Santana grumbles from behind them. "I'm not exactly thrilled you're hanging out with the midget either."

Brittany turns and runs backwards while smirking playfully at the Latina, "I know that, but if you'll remember I thanked you last night for being so cool about it, over and over again if you recall."

Santana chokes and stumbles while blushing and Brittany turns and sprints away for the last stretch of their run, while giggling. Santana manages to recover and glares at a smirking Quinn and growls at her. "Not a word." She then sprints past Quinn and the blond lets her keep the lead so she can save her pride.

Quinn catches herself admiring her friends attributes as she is running, the way her legs seem to go on forever before they disappear into her entirely too short, black shorts, absentmindedly staring at the sight of the toned legs and the rest of her physique. Santana really has a great body. She shakes her head to clear it, ignoring once again, the strange sensation of jealousy and longing that sometimes creeps up when the subject of Santana and Brittany comes up. They're her friends and she's just jealous that she doesn't have what they have, that's all there is to it, she tells herself.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

It was almost time to go home for the day and Quinn and Santana were both worried. They hadn't seen hide or hair of Brittany since they had gotten school. They had both sent her multiple texts and calls and hadn't heard anything from the blonde. They were both really worried and if this is what Quinn had put them through a couple weeks ago then she hadn't done nearly enough apologizing. Quinn was checking the girl's usual haunts, she was currently at the bleachers in the gymnasium. Santana was hunting down Berry, hoping the blond was with her.

Quinn dials Brittany's number again and once again gets her answering machine. "Hey B, where are you, are you okay? Please contact me or San as soon as you-" Quinn stops speaking when she hears some sniffling.

She hangs up and listens carefully, hearing the sound again and as she looks around she sees her friend sitting under the bleachers, hiding away. She's sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall, her head in her knees. She's probably been there all day.

Quinn quickly sends a text to Santana and then goes and sits next to the girl. She pulls her into a hug and the girl grabs onto her. She doesn't sob, Brittany rarely ever does no matter how sad she gets, but she rests her head on Quinn's shoulder and continues to quietly sniffle.

Quinn gives her friend a few minutes before talking. "Hey B, I've been worried about you, what happened sweetie?"

"Mr. Schuester didn't like our medley. Me and Rachel went and showed him what we came up with this morning and he got really angry. He said that we were being selfish and disruptive and that it wasn't fair to the others that we keep interrupting him and trying to change what he was setting up. That if we couldn't be team players we should quit."

Brittany quietly whimpers. "I just want to make this club really awesome, cause I love it so much, and so does Rachel, we're just trying to help. We didn't take any of the solos for ourselves, it was going to be you and Finn, but he didn't care. We're not being selfish are we?" Brittany looks at her imploringly.

Quinn feels a white hot rage flow through her, yeah if that guy, who was already doing such a bang up job of destroying his own club, was going to hurt her friend then maybe she should assist him. She had definitely found her motivation to help Sylvester. However she schools her features into sympathetic ones so that Brittany doesn't see how angry she is. "Of course not B, it's like you said, you were just trying to help. He's just being stupid, you guys didn't do anything wrong. And I'm so sorry he made you sad. He's an idiot who's trying to relive his glory days through this club and he needs a wake-up call that this club is for us, the students, not him. I'll go talk to him-"

"No." Brittany says quietly, "I don't want him to be angry at you too, maybe he's right. I'll just show up and do what he says, it's no big deal."

Quinn resists the urge to roll her eyes at the thought of Mr. Schuester being mad at her. She deals with Sylvester and her parents every day. You want scary angry, look at them. Mr. Schuester scored about a -3 in comparison, in her opinion. Still Brittany hates it when people are mad at her and so even someone like Mr. Schue being mad at her would bother the girl. "But B-"

"It's okay, really." The blonde says getting up. "I think that I'm just going to go home, I kind of want to be alone right now. I'm sorry to have worried you guys, please tell Santana to not be angry with me and I'll see you guys tomorrow morning."

"B wait!" Quinn said jumping up but the blond ignores her and keeps going.

Quinn was standing there fuming when Santana finally arrived.

"I couldn't find Streisand, you found B though?" Santana asks worriedly, noting how angry Quinn was.

"Oh I found her alright." Quinn then goes onto explain what Brittany had told her.

Santana was red with rage, "I'm gonna fucking cut him, the hell'z he gets ta talk to B like that! I'm g'nna go all Lima Height's on his ass!"

"No." Quinn tells her coldly.

"The fuck you just say to me!?" Santana asks her incredulously.

"I said no, you're not going to go talk to him, I am. You are going to go and be with Brittany, she said she wanted to be alone, well you are going to go be alone with her."

"Why don't you go, she loves you like you're her sister or something."

"I know and I do too, but she doesn't need me right now, she needs you. She'll just tell me she wants to be alone, she will however let you stay."

"What, why me?"

"Because no matter what, you are her exception. She always wants you and you her." Saying this makes Quinn's heart constrict slightly.

"Me, I don't know what you're-"

"No, no bullshitting me, not about this, not today. I know okay, and you know I know. I don't care and you know that too and you know I won't ever say anything until you are ready, but today, for B, you need to know I know and that I don't care and right now she needs you. So go be with her, tomorrow we can go back to pretending that you guys are some big secret from me, but today, for B, no secrets. So go be with her, and for today don't be ashamed or embarrassed that you have someone in your life who is special to you and needs you, no matter what the circumstances are. I'll handle Schue, you go be with her."

Santana looks down ashamed and then looks up at Quinn gratefully. "Thanks." She mumbles softly. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to go tear him a new one, and then I'm going to find a way to destroy his damn club. Before this I was against it for B's sake, but I've just found my motivation. I know she loves it, but if he and his club are going to treat her like this then I don't care, and she can be mad at me all she wants, but anything that hurts her or you is something that needs to be destroyed. I don't care. You and B are the most important people in my life and I will always fight for you guys no matter what, and I'm Quinn Fabray, I always win. Before today I was indifferent to this club, now it's my enemy."

Santana gives her an impressed look. "Dramatic much?" She teases, though she is grateful for Quinn taking this up. She is torn between wanting to go and hold her girl in her arms and comfort her and going and hurting the person who hurt her, so Quinn taking care of things here is a great weight off her mind. And Santana knows that while she may be fire, she's flashy and direct and capable of damage, she's also not so subtle, that you can rebuild the damage from a fire. Quinn is ice, she's cold calculating and subtle, you don't notice she's there and what she's doing until it's too late. With Quinn motivated there is no way that the club will survive.

Quinn scoffs, "Oh you haven't seen anything yet. Now go, I'll see you tomorrow."

Santana nods her head and then turns to leave. "Oh and Q, call me when you have a plan, I'm in as well."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn found Mr. Schuester in the teacher's lounge. Coach Tanaka, Ms. Pilsberry, and surprisingly coach Sylvester are there as well. Which was actually a lucky break for her, it might get dicey doing what she was about to do without an adult there who would back her, but coach would see this as the first play in destroying glee club so she would go with it. It was actually a completely separate issue to that, and it may actually hurt her chances of doing that, but B came first and for two weeks now he had been snubbing her friend. Today was the last straw.

"Q, this is the teacher's lounge, what are you doing here?" Coach Sylvester asks her suspiciously.

"Excuse me coach but this doesn't concern you." Quinn says dismissively, and secretly enjoys the look of shock on the woman's face. However she needs to move quickly before the woman blows her top.

She looks at Mr. Schuester and levels him with her fiercest glare. "I don't know what the hell your problem is but you need to get over it."

All four adults in the room looked at her in wide eyed shock. "Seriously, I get that you're the teacher in charge of the club, but it's pathetic the way that you try and relive your glory days through us. Because guess what, these clubs are for us, the students and the fact that you treat it as your second shot at performing or whatever, is just sad."

"Miss Fabray! You can't just come in here and talk to a teach-" Ms. Pilsberry tries to speak up.

"Excuse you, but I don't believe this concerns you." Quinn says glaring the timid woman into submission. She may only be a student but there was a reason that she ruled this school and it had nothing to do with a sunny disposition.

"Since day one, Brittany has committed to try and make this club the best she can. She absolutely loves it, but you keep shooting her down because it doesn't mesh with this perfect little eighties or nineties or whenever the hell you went to school, image of what the club should be. And it's not just her, you don't listen to anyone in the club. And quite frankly it's getting ridiculous. Guess what you need twelve people to compete or this little club of yours is over. Nobody is lining up to join, and you're alientating the people you do have. Maybe if people actually had fun during this club, if people actually felt like they got to contribute then other people would join. But no, you sit there and yell at and discourage your students for wanting to do something that doesn't coincide with what you want to do. Get this, these clubs, these after school activities, they're for us, the students."

"Not you." She glares at Mr. Schuester.

"Not you." Turning to coach Tanaka, who holds his hands up in surrender, a fearful look in his eyes.

"And not even you." She finishes up with coach Sylvester. She then turns back to Mr. Schuester. "I don't know what your problems are or why this club is so important to you and I really don't care. Get your crap together and remember why you're here." Quinn sneers in disgust, "I'm done here."

She's glad that none of the adults in the room can see her face, because she is supposed to be pissed, but she can't help the smirk that's formed on her face. She just walked into a room full of teachers and told one off and as she leaves the teacher's lounge her smirk becomes a grin, she actually got away with it.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

It was dead silent in the teacher's lounge, all of the adults staring at each other unsure if what just actually happened. Suddenly Sylvester couldn't hold it in anymore. "Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh my God, I knew I made her captain of the cheerios for a reason. That girl has got fire. I don't know what you did to piss her off Schuester but damn! I'll uh, I'll check you later. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

As she leaves the room she takes a second to enjoy the still stricken look on Will's face and considers what her next move is. She really should go tell Q off for talking to a teacher like that, but damn if that didn't take some balls. If nothing else she needed to find the girl so that she could be caught up with what the she had planned.

She found Quinn in front of her locker a smirk on her face. So the girl _was_ up to something. She silently pulls up behind her. "So that was quite a performance you put on in there." Quinn knew better than anyone how to keep her composure but Sylvester's keen eyes didn't miss the slight, startled, jump from the cheerio when she had spoken.

Quinn slightly turns and faces her. "I have no idea what you are talking about coach. He hurt one of my friends and I called him on it. But even if I did have something planned why would it be any concern of yours?" Quinn closes her locker and faces her. She then puts on the most innocently inquisitive face that Sue had ever seen. This girl, though she would never admit it out loud, was already better than her at getting what she wanted.

"Oh no concern at all, I'm just wondering what you're going to do now that you're out glee club that's all?" This is what she really wants to know. How is she going to get her budget back to full, if her lead mole is out of the club.

"Out of glee club? Even after I go to him tomorrow and say," Quinn schools her features into such a sorrowful and contrite state that even she wouldn't be able to tell the difference. "I am so sorry Mr. Schuester, I was completely out of line and it was totally inappropriate of me to talk to you like that, please forgive me." The younger blondes' eyes actually have tears in them and Sue stares at her impressed.

Quinn quickly drops the remorseful act. "You'll have your budget back in no time, this was just stage one, have a pleasant day coach." Quinn then turns and leaves and Sue watches her go.

A few steps away Quinn pauses and glances back, "Thank you for telling me how inappropriate it was to talk to a teacher like that and of course I'll go apologize to the man tomorrow."

Sue nods her head, letting the younger woman know that she got the message loud and clear. Stay out of it and if necessary play along. Damn, did she make the right choice for her cheerio captain or what? She was already thinking of plans for the extra money that would be rightfully returned to her once Q was finished.

Quinn fights the urge to sigh in relief now that she has coach out of the way. Tomorrow would be the hard part, whether or not he actually forgave her for talking to him like that was irrelevant. That was more to pay him back for making B sad than anything else. If he accepts her apology tomorrow then it will be business as usual. She'll go to the club, pretend to be a happy loyal member and then work to destroy it from the inside. If not, well a couple well placed slushy threats and nobody will want to join, easiest case scenario for her to get the job done, but Brittany would be mad at her so, she hopes that he does.

Now it's time to head home and do some research. She basically has 24 hours to become an expert in high school national show choir rules and etiquette, she needs to find any loop holes or rules or big names, something, anything that she can use and exploit. She considers calling and checking up on B and also updating Santana but decides against it, figuring that her two friends are busy right now and she doesn't want to disturb them if she is making Brittany feel better. Besides if they needed her they would call her. She can just fill San in tomorrow.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

As Quinn enters her home she pauses for a second as she hears her parents screaming at each other. It sounds like they're in the kitchen so she quickly and quietly opens the door and slips in. She looks around wearily as she creeps towards the stairs and jumps when she reaches them, hearing the sound of glass shattering. She looks up startled when her father comes storming into the room and spots her.

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!?"

Quinn swallows nervously. "I was at school daddy."

He marches towards her and grabs her arm tightly and yanks her close, she winces in pain, the smell of alcohol on his breath is unmistakable. "DON'T LIE TO ME!"

"I'm not daddy, I swear."

He squeezes her arm even tighter and growls, "You don't have cheerleader practice today, so you have no reason to be this late, NOW TELL THE TRUTH!"

"I… I had a glee club thing, I'm sorry daddy I should have told you."

"Glee club? THAT HOMO PARADE!? WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING THERE!?"

"It's… it's an art program. It'll look good on… on a college transcript… you know, cheerio's for athletics and glee club for arts, diversity… please you're hurting me."

He quickly lets go and takes a step back, a look on his face like he's shocked at his actions, but as soon as it's there it's gone and he's glaring at her again. "Don't do anything to embarrass me, and stay out of my sight." Her father then storms away, and Quinn doesn't move until she hears the door to his study slam.

She looks over and sees her mother standing in the kitchen doorway looking at her in disappointment. "You should know better than to get in his way when he's like this." She slurs before turning away and heading back into the kitchen.

Quinn shakily gets to her feet and chokes back her tears, she won't cry over her parents and besides she has things more important to worry about than them. She knows the drill, stay out of their way when they get like this and everything will be fine. She only has three more years to go, she can last three more years. She looks at her bicep and frowns, it's already starting to bruise, looks like she'll be wearing one of her long sleeve uniforms tomorrow.

She goes to her room and sends a quick text to Santana asking how things are, before changing out of her cheerio's uniform and getting on her laptop. She has a bunch of research to do and she needs to keep her mind off what just happened. Her phone buzzes and she sees it's a text from Santana.

**From: Santana- Yeah, B's good, we're watching some movies and she's doing better, she'll be fine, B's tougher than we give her credit for. Everything cool on your end?**

Quinn smiles sadly.

**From: Quinn- Yeah, I'll fill you in tomorrow, take care of B, tell her I love her and I'll see you guys tomorrow.**

** From: Santana- Will do, see you tomorrow.**

**s**

** A.N. So yeah that was chapter 5, I hope you enjoyed it. Next chapter will be up next Friday.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Standard disclaimer, I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

Quinn takes a deep breath as she prepares to go into Mr. Schuester's classroom to apologize. It's not that she's nervous about it; it's more along the line that she didn't say anything wrong yesterday.

Disrespectful?

Yes.

Wrong?

No.

Still her best bet for getting rid of the glee club was to be in it, so she had to make nice. She had stayed up late researching and finally had a working plan, so here she was. She quickly schools her features into ones of nervousness and contrition. She hesitantly knocks on the door and meekly steps inside.

"Excuse me Mr. Schuester, may I speak with you?"

"Miss Fabray." He says coolly, a wary look on his face.

She moves to stand in front of him with her arms clasped behind her back submissively, her head slightly bowed. "I came to apologize to you for yesterday. It was wholly inappropriate and wrong of me to speak to you like that. I feel awful about it and was up all night worrying about it, so I came to say how sorry I was and that I hope you can forgive me and accept my apology."

Mr. Schuester's face softens and he rubs his face in a considering manner. "Apology accepted, and… you weren't completely wrong. I guess… I just remember how much fun it was for me, I remember doing these numbers that I'm teaching you and just… having a blast you know. But you're right, that's part of my problem."

Here he chuckles lightly, self depreciatingly. "I've been doing everything that I can to make the club just like it used to be, and that can't happen. You were right; it does need to be your guys' club. So I'll do my best to listen to you guys more often."

Quinn bites her lip nervously. "So… does this mean… I'm not kicked out of the club?"

"Of course not, but you do understand why it wasn't okay for you to come and speak to me that way yesterday right?" He asks her pointedly. "I'm the teacher and you're the student and there needs to be some boundaries, and you need to show me the respect that is due to my position. And in return I need to remember that you guys aren't kids, you're young adults and you have opinions of your own, and because I say so isn't really a valid reason anymore."

"Yes Mr. Schuester, and coach kind of read me the riot act yesterday as well." He looks shocked and slightly pleased at that bit of information. "So again I am really sorry about yesterday and thank you so much for not kicking me out of glee club."

"No problem, as long as you understand why you were wrong yesterday. I also need to thank you as well. Yesterday was a wakeup call for me, I'll do better I promise."

Quinn hesitates, unsure if she should push this but decides to go for it anyway, after all it's for Brittany. "So does this mean you'll give Brittany's and Rachel's medley another listen?"

Mr. Schuester smiles, "I think I can do that."

Quinn beams at the man. "Thank you Mr. Schue, I'll see you in glee."

"See you later Quinn."

As soon as Quinn is out of the man's class room she drops her smiling face and adopts one of cool indifference. That had been much easier than she had thought it was going to be. She's goes looking for Santana so that she can fill her in on the plan she had come up with last night. But unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, she runs into Rachel Berry first.

"Man hands." She calls out but the other girl ignores her, "Hey Ru-Paul!" She groans in frustration as the girl continues to walk on, ignoring her. "Fine, Berry but that's the best I've got, wait up."

The tiny brunette stops and faces her, a look of polite interest on her face. "How can I help you Quinn?" She asks with clipped politeness.

"Look, let's clear some things between us. I don't like you and it's pretty safe to assume that the feelings mutual correct?"

"Actually I don't hold anything against yo-"

"Just shut up and let me talk." Quinn interrupts her, completely uninterested in what the girl has to say. "I'm not a big fan of this glee club thing, but it's important to Finn, my boyfriend," She can't help throwing that in, "And it's important to Brittany as well. So by extension, it has to be important to me too. Do you understand where I'm coming from?"

Rachel nods her head.

"The dance moves that Mr. Schuester has us doing will cause us to lose any competition we enter."

"You don't know that," Rachel says unconvincingly "Besides, what do you know about show choir competitions?"

"About as much as you know about winning a national championship."

Rachel scowls at that, and nods her head acknowledging her point. "Okay, fine what do you want me to do about it?"

"I did some research, we need Dakota Stanley. He is the choreographer for Vocal Adrenaline, you know the national show choir champion-"

"I know who they are. What makes you think Mr. Shcuester or anybody else in there will listen to me? They haven't in the past."

"Look, you're the leader of the glee club; the people there look to you for what to do."

Rachel scoffs at that, "They barely tolerate me there."

"Look you know I don't like you, I find you loud, obnoxious, and generally unpleasant to be around, plus I know you've been trying to steal my boyfriend, so bonus points for that as well, so you can believe me when I say that you are the most talented person in that room. You have an amazing voice, and music seems to come as naturally to you as breathing. You have talent and you're confident, and that can rub people the wrong way. Especially if those people are almost as talented as you but are unwilling to put in the work that you do. You're the star of that club, the leader, or the captain. Whatever you want to call it, and whether they like it or not, or want to or not, in glee club we follow your lead."

"You really think I'm talented?" Rachel asks at first shocked but then pleased by what the other girl had just said.

"And there you go, being obnoxious. Of course I think you're talented. I've heard you sing, and anyone who has will agree with me. But fine if you need the validation, yes I think you're talented."

Rachel smiles sadly, "It's not that I need the validation, it's just that nobody ever says anything nice about me, it's just… nice to hear."

Quinn ruthlessly and savagely suppresses the guilt that bubbles up inside her, and reminds herself that this is the girl she caught her boyfriend shoving his tongue down her throat.

"Look if you suggest Dakota Stanley then the rest of the club will go for it, you'll be the hero and we might actually stand a chance of making it to nationals." Quinn says impatiently, eager to get away from the girl that she's starting to feel guilty for picking on.

"Well, why don't you suggest it, or have Brittany suggest it, if she's your friend, why me?" Rachel asks suspiciously.

"For one, Mr. Schuester is kind of pissed off at me, we talked it out this morning but he won't be taking suggestions from me anytime soon. The second reason, why you and not B? Simple, Brittany has been trying from day one to make suggestions and he has not once taken her seriously, he might not do what you say but he always listens to you. Again, you're the leader of this little club, it has to be you."

"Why is Mr. Schuester mad at you?"

"Not important." Quinn shrugs off the question.

"Humor me."

"Fine, I went and yelled at him yesterday for being an awful teacher after I found out that he yelled at Brittany and you for doing that medley thing. I called him on some of his crap and I did it in front of some of the other teachers so it was a little more embarrassing for him. I apologized this morning but guys, no matter what their age, have fragile egos. He may have forgiven me but it'll be a while before he'll be willing to listen to me. Besides this club is important to my boyfriend and my best friend, not me. Take my suggestion or don't I really don't care at this point." Quinn shrugs dismissively and turns and walks away.

"Dakota Stanley?" She hears the other girl ask hesitantly.

Quinn stops briefly and nods her head in confirmation before continuing her search for her friends.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn doesn't find either of her friends till second period gym and it's just Brittany. Santana had caught a cold last night, so it's only the two blonds today. They are both out on the field in their cheerios uniforms, stretching before they get a chance to talk however.

"Hey B, how are you feeling?"

Brittany beams at her, "Mr. Schuester caught up to me and told me that he wants to hear Rachel's and my medley again!"

"Hey that's great B!" Quinn smiles back, surprised and glad that her friend is getting another chance. It doesn't change anything, she's already set the ball in motion, but still she's happy for her friend.

"Silly, I'm thanking you. I know you talked to him yesterday, Santana told me you were going to. So thank you, I know you only joined up to keep an eye on Finn, but glee club means a lot to me too and I'm glad that I have you to back me up."

Her friend's sincerity strikes her and she feels like a piece of crap. Her friend loves this club yet she was setting it up to be destroyed. Brittany didn't deserve to have someone like her backing her up, she deserved better. Still she forces a sweet smile onto her face, "Of course B, you're my friend, it's that simple."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn was pretty sure she was going to die, she was running laps around the track next to Brittany, it was still morning and already 89 degrees and she was stuck wearing one of her long sleeve uniforms. She could feel the sweat just pouring down her red face as coach Sylvester shouted obscenities at them through her megaphone.

Still it was either this or answering awkward questions about the hand shaped bruise on her arm. It was really sad that dying of heat stroke was the easier option of the two. And when the bell rang and coach dismissed them she almost fell to her knees in gratitude that she could go take a quick, cool shower.

She putters around the field helping to clean up the equipment, cones, ropes, pom-pom's, that kind of stuff. When she finally enters the locker room it's quiet so she assumes that she is alone and quickly dresses down and hits the showers, taking an unused single stall and closing the curtain that's hanging there. She lets the cool water run down her body and just stands there for a few seconds enjoying the solitude and the quiet.

She takes a moment and examines her arm. Her left bicep is engulfed in an ugly black and purple hand shaped mark; she gently runs a thumb over it and winces slightly. Three more years, she tells herself, just three more years. Usually this kind of thing doesn't happen. She usually avoids her father when he gets bad enough to get rough with her, but it's happened before, and she knows that she'll just have to be more careful in the future. Three more years, when it comes to home, that's her mantra, her prayer, just three more years.

She turns around startled when she hears a gasp. She is shocked to see Brittany standing there, her friend staring at her with a look of horror.

"Oh my God, Quinn!" She whispers.

"Brittany!" Quinn shouts startled and she quickly backs up against the wall; trying to cover herself, and hide her bruise as her cheerio uniform clad friend makes her way over to her, completely oblivious to the water.

"Brittany what are you doing, get out of here!" Quinn shrieks.

Brittany just ignores her and gently takes hold of Quinn's left arm and carefully examines it.

Brittany had just wanted to know if Quinn wanted to come and watch her and Rachel perform their medley. She had completely forgotten to ask out on the field and had been too excited to wait and ask later. She knew Quinn always waited and took a late shower because she was shy about showing off her body to other people. Which was silly in Brittany's opinion because Quinn was smokin' hot, but still Quinn had always been a little shy in that regard.

So she just figured she would pop her head in and ask. Quinn may tell her to get out, but they had seen each other naked enough times that it usually wasn't a big deal. She had not expected, however, to see her friend's arm looking like it did. A nasty ugly bruise surrounded her bicep and when Quinn had touched it and winced, Brittany couldn't help but gasp.

So she made her way over to her friend and gently took her arm in her hand, careful so that she wouldn't hurt it more and began to look it over. The dark and angry coloring, the little red spots where the skin had slightly broken. The shape that it took, it was the shape of a large hand.

Brittany feels angrier than she had ever felt in her entire life. Someone had hurt her friend and she was going to find out who and then slowly and painfully kill them. She tears her eyes away from the arm and looks up at her friend, who is just standing there as stiff as a board, her face a blank mask. Brittany softens her features and her voice cracks just a little when she asks. "Who did this to you?"

For the first time since Brittany has known her, Quinn looks afraid and it makes her even angrier. Quinn is one of the bravest people she knows, her look of fear seems so out of place on the girl that it was almost like looking at another person.

"Nobody, please Brittany, just leave."

"Quinn, who did this to you?" A thought enters Brittany's mind and she can no longer keep the rage off of her face. Quinn looks away from her and starts to shake. "Was it Finn? Did Finn do this to you?" Brittany asks, her voice quivering with barely suppressed fury.

It would make sense. It would explain why Quinn didn't dump him after he cheated on her. He had obviously threatened her and was hurting her. Quinn couldn't dump him, had forgiven him, because she was too afraid to do anything else. It was all quickly adding up in Brittany's mind. She would have never thought that Finn would be the type of guy to do something like this, but then again she had never thought he would be the type of guy to cheat either.

"Did Finn do this to you? You don't have to defend him, just tell me the truth and we'll get you away from him. I promise, please Quinn don't let him hurt you anymore!"

Quinn mumbles something, but Brittany can't quite hear it. "I'm sorry, what was that sweetie, I couldn't hear you?" Brittany says softly.

"Finn didn't do this." Quinn repeats, only slightly louder, but Brittany caught it this time.

"You don't have to defend him or lie anymore, if he's hurting you he needs to be stopped!"

Quinn just shakes her head sadly at Brittany. "It's not him."

"Then who, who's hurting you!? Please Quinn, you don't deserve to have this happen, tell me or tell Santana or a teacher, or your parents. At least tell them, they can help you!" Brittany says desperately. Why won't Quinn tell her who had hurt her?

Quinn looks down ashamed, "They can't help me B, no one can."

"Why?" Brittany wants to cry, why won't she let her help her.

"Because B, my father is the one who's did this."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Both blonds were sitting on a bench in the locker room with towels wrapped around them. Brittany was looking at Quinn who had her head facing down. Neither of them had spoken since Quinn's confession. Brittany moves in closer to Quinn and takes her hands in her own. Quinn looks up at her, and she looks exhausted, almost as bad as the day after Finn had cheated on her.

"Talk to me, please?" Brittany pleads softly.

"What do you want me to say B. My parents are drunks and my father is an angry drunk." Here she shrugs like it's no big deal. "I wasn't fast enough and I didn't get out of his way in time, this usually doesn't happen. I just need to remember to be more careful in the future. I stay out of his way when he gets like that and I don't get hurt. It's just the way life at home is for me."

"Quinn, he's hurting you, that's not okay, that's not normal and it needs to be stopped. Does your mom know?"

Quinn scoffs, "Of course she knows, she watched him do this." She gestures to her arm. "It's no big deal B, so don't worry about it."

"You're being hurt! It is a big deal! We need to tell someone, a teacher or a cop, someone! This can't happen again!" Brittany is crying now and Quinn smiles sweetly at her, her eyes full of sorrow.

"It is so sweet of you to want to help, but I've tried telling people before and it doesn't help, it doesn't work. The only thing that telling anyone does is make things worse at home. The last time I told someone all I got was a broken nose for my troubles. Telling won't help; my parents are too rich and influential." Quinn pulls her friend into a hug.

"I've been living with this for as long as I can remember, I'm used to it and for the most part I can avoid it. I just got unlucky yesterday that's all."

"Unlucky!?" Brittany stares at her friend incredulously. She had known that Quinn's parents were kind of jerks but this was so far beyond what she had ever expected. "Quinn you have to tell someone, this shouldn't have ever happened to you, please!"

"B," Quinn says to her like she has just said something incredibly sweet yet naïve at the same time. She leans in and kisses Brittany's forehead. "I told you, it won't help. Please you have to promise me that you won't tell anyone. Not a teacher, or your parents, not even Santana. You can't tell anyone. The situation isn't escalating, it's staying the same. I can deal with it, I've survived it this long, three more years won't make a difference. But if you tell someone, they might try to interfere, and no matter how well meaning they are, it will only make this worse for me in the end. So please, if you are my friend, you can't tell anyone about this, ever. Please Brittany, promise me."

"Quinn I…" Brittany starts to sob quietly, heart broken by what she has just learned and what her friend is asking of her and she wonders if she can promise that.

Quinn begins to gently rock them back and forth, a reversal of the situation only two weeks ago. "Please Brittany, I'm begging you, please don't tell anyone, please."

She nods her head and begins to cry even harder, hating herself for agreeing to it. She is the worst person in the world, her friend is being hurt and she's not doing a damn thing about it.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

"Hey babe, how was school?" Santana asks, smiling as Brittany walked into to her room.

"Good… It was good… fine, nothing happened." Brittany says forcing a smile. She kind of aimlessly wanders around the room, looking anywhere and everywhere other than at her, kind of, but not really, girlfriend.

She just couldn't get her mind off of what happened today. She just keeps seeing over and over again in her mind Quinn's bruise. And then she would remember different times where Quinn had acted weirdly or dressed differently and she wondered how many of those times had been because she had been covering a bruise. Her friend was in trouble and now that she knew, she had promised that she wouldn't do anything about it and it was killing her inside.

Normally when she got confused she would go to Quinn or Santana, but Quinn was who she was confused about and she had promised Quinn that she wouldn't tell the other girl. But she couldn't do nothing could she? She had to tell someone, but she had promised. She hadn't been able to think about anything else all day, and she had even let Rachel down. She messed up so badly on the redo of the medley for Mr. Schue that it was pretty much kaput at this point. She had apologized profusely to the brunette afterwards and luckily she had been forgiven, they would come up with something else, but it was pretty half-hearted on her end.

And she had all but begged Quinn to come over and stay the night at her place, terrified for her friend and what she would go home to, but Quinn had just brushed it off like it was no big deal, that everything was fine. But it wasn't, was it? Quinn had said that it would only get worse if she told someone, what if that was true, what if she did tell someone and Quinn got really really hurt, how could she live with herself? But what if she did nothing and things got worse or even just stayed the same? She had no idea what to do.

She's brought out of her contemplations when she feels Santana come up behind her and wrap her arms around her and cupping her breasts, while laying kisses along her neck. "Hey baby, I'm feeling better now, so how about you help me feel great and I'll show you just how much I missed you." She purrs seductively.

Normally this would be more than enough to get Brittany going, but today she just couldn't. She pulls away from Santana and looks at her apologetically. "I'm really sorry San, but I'm not really in the mood today."

"Hey, what's wrong baby? You've been acting all pensive and stuff, is it still about Mr. Schuester being a dick, I thought you were okay now, plus I told you Quinn was going to talk to him?" Santana asks taking her hands.

"No… She did, and he asked to see it again…"

"Did he not like it? Because I've gotta say that shouldn't get you down, we've both heard what his taste in music is, or lack of, in his case. I'm sure you both rocked it… well you more than the dwarf, but still."

"No, it's not that, and don't call her that, she's my friend." Brittany half-heartedly scolds Santana.

"Sorry, then what's wrong baby? Tell me."

Santana moves them both to the bed and holds the blond close to her. Brittany moves so that her head is resting against the other girl's chest so that she can listen to the girl's heart beat. It was one of her favorite things to do in the world and it always helped her think. She nuzzles in a little closer when she feels Santana begin to gently run a hand through her hair.

Being like this with Santana, being held like this was one of the best things in the world. Santana would just lie there with her, holding her until she was ready to speak, or not, whatever she decided to do, the other girl was content to hold her and just be there for her. And that was what she was struggling with now, did she tell or not? She just didn't know what to do, and as she lay there contemplating what the right thing to do was, she closes her eyes tightly and says a little prayer begging God to tell her what the right thing to do is.

**s**

** A.N. So that was chapter six, I hope that you all enjoyed it. There are still a few more chapters to go before everything comes to a head, but we're getting there. Also I apologize for any mistakes, I do my best, but I'm not always able to catch them. Next chapter, as always, will be up next Friday.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A.N. Sorry about the small, well it's not so much a spoiler as just adding to this stories canon, anyway I just wanted to address this real quickly. I don't know what they actually do in the show and I don't particularly care, these are the jobs of Brittany's and Santana's parents in this story. Santana's mother is a lawyer, she works for the D.A.'s office and her father, though he isn't mentioned in this chapter, is a doctor. Brittany's father is the sheriff and her mom is a homemaker. Like I said I don't know if that's canon or not, but it is in this story. So anyway, standard disclaimer I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

"Show me your arm." Santana demands as she yanks Quinn into an unused classroom.

"What the hell Santana!?" Quinn demands, wondering what her friend's problem was.

"I said show me your fucking arm."

"What? Why?"

"Please Quinn." Said girl looks over and sees Brittany standing behind Santana, unable to meet her eyes and looking very guilty.

Quinn sighs, "You told her."

Brittany just nods her head, biting her lip nervously.

"Brittany…" She says frustrated, but not really angry, it really was a long shot that the girl wouldn't tell Santana, still she had hoped.

"That's right, B told me, now show me." Santana demands again.

"It's not that bad San, B's making a bigger deal out of it than it really is-"

"Don't fucking lie to me; now show me your arm."

Quinn doesn't move to do so, but she also doesn't stop the Latina when she reaches over and rolls up Quinn's sleeve. Santana inhales sharply when she sees it. "You promised me that you would tell me if it got worse!" She demands, her eyes watering.

Quinn tries to make light of it, "Technically I told you that you didn't have to worry about it."

The glares that she receives from both Santana and Brittany let her know that they were not going to let this go.

"I'm calling my mom and then I'm calling B's dad and we are getting you the fuck out of there." Santana says while reaching for her cell phone.

"No!" Quinn yells startled, yanking the phone from her friends grasp. "Look this is why I didn't tell you. I've said this to B and now I'll say it to you, telling someone, anyone, does me no good. I've tried it before and it doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Trust me. I know you want to help, but don't. I'm asking you, I'm begging you, as your friend, please just drop it."

"Drop it! Quinn… fuck Querida this isn't something you just shrug off, you need help!"

"Look, I've been living with this for as long as I can remember, I know how to survive it. It doesn't happen often, I can usually avoid my father when he gets violent, I just need to survive until graduation and then I can leave there forever."

"Q, can you even hear yourself!? You talk about surviving home, _home_, where you should be safest, and that bruise is clearly proof that you're not safe there. I don't care, I'm telling my mom, she's going to have his ass thrown in jail and you're coming to live with me or B."

Quinn glares at the girl and takes a step back rolling her sleeve back down, "I'll deny it happened. I'll say that I have no idea what you are talking about and you'll have no way to prove otherwise."

"That bruise on your arm is proof enough!"

"I won't ever let them check, they'll need to get a court order or something to do it and I'll just lie about where it came from."

"The hell is wrong with you!?" Santana screams. "If it were me or B going through this then you would be fighting tooth and nail to get us out, you would instantly recognize how fucked up this is and do something about it, so why the fuck won't you do the same for yourself!?"

"Please San," Quinn asks her friend desperately, "please if you're my friend, you'll let this go."

"No, give me one damn good reason why I should!"

Tears begin to fall down Quinn's face. She knows she's being stupid, she knows she should tell someone, but it didn't work in the past, and despite everything, they're still her parents, she still loves them and telling someone would feel like a betrayal.

When she thinks of them she doesn't see Judy Fabray the emotionally distant woman who can't say I love you without a drink in hand, she sees the woman who held her when she was five and sang her to sleep after she had secretly watched a scary movie and had a nightmare.

She doesn't see Russell Fabray, the man who scares and hurts her, she sees her daddy who used to tuck her in and read her stories. Who held her when she came home crying because a boy at school was mean to her. He used to be her hero, and despite both of her parents many flaws, she loved them, she needed them.

"Please Santana, I promise this won't happen again, I promise, please, please, if you love me if you care about me, you will leave this alone."

"Quinn!"

"No listen, I've been dealing with this for years, it really isn't that bad. It's not great, I know that, but it will be better in the long run if you just leave it alone. Please promise me that you will drop this."

"This needs to stop. This," She says motioning to Quinn's arm, "will not happen again, I… I can't believe I'm about to fucking agree to this," Santana growls out, sounding completely disgusted with herself. "But fine, I'll keep my mouth shut for now."

"Thank yo-"

"No! Don't you dare fucking thank me for this! I am going against every good instinct, every feeling that I'm having about this by agreeing to not say anything. And I'll tell you this right now, if it happens again, if I see or even suspect that you've been hurt again, I'm telling. I don't care, I don't care if you hate me, if you say you'll deny it, I'll tell. It won't matter how much you beg, or plead, or reason, or threaten, I won't fucking care! You're life and safety, mean more to me than your friendship, so if saving you means losing you, I will go to sleep with a big fucking smile on my face!" Santana is crying now.

"Don't you ever fucking dare to thank me for doing this, I… I just… FUCK!" Santana turns and storms out the door.

"San…" Quinn whispers, wishing that she could say or do something to let her friend know that it was okay, that everything was going to be okay.

"I'm sorry." Brittany mumbles. "I know I promised, but I'm really scared for you, please, I know I promised not to tell, but I had to. You're my best friend and," Brittany looks up at her, her eyes wide and fierce "You would have done the same thing! Please don't hate me; I just want you to be safe."

"I've told you B, I could never hate you." Quinn says softly, turning away, unable to meet her friends gaze.

Brittany moves up to her and pulls her into a hug. Brittany than leans in and begins to whisper in her ear. "I'm with San on this one, I love you to death Quinn, and the thought of you being hurt is awful. I'll keep my mouth shut this time, but like San said, your life and safety mean more to me than your friendship, and I'll protect you even at the cost of losing you." Brittany quickly leaves, leaving a pensive Quinn alone in an emotional whirlwind.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn decided to give both of her friends some space for the rest of the day. She understood where they were coming from, and they were right, if the situations were reversed she would do everything that she could to protect them, but the situations weren't reversed and it may be hypocritical of her but she didn't need them to interfere. She could handle things on her own.

She catches Santana just as the girl is about to enter the choir room for glee club. "San, I need to talk to you a moment."

"What?" The girl replies shortly.

"Look I know you're mad at me, but I need you to do something for me, it's about what coach Sylvester asked us to do."

"Yeah… go ahead."

"Today Rachel is going to make a suggestion and I need you to back her on it. It may not make sense right away, like it may seem like it's actually helping the group, but I need you to trust me on this. Back her play, and if you're interested I can tell you what I came up with after school today, if not… I understand."

Santana rolls her eyes. "I'm pissed at you, but don't act like we're not still best friends, Britts has made plans with the dwarf- I mean Berry, this weekend so we can chill at my place and we can go over what you've got."

"Thanks San."

"Now come on, let's go spend the next hour _step, clap, stepping_." The Latina finishes in a falsely excited voice.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

It wasn't until the last ten minutes of glee club that Rachel finally made her move. They had just done this particularly awkward hip shimmy and Quinn couldn't take it anymore she caught Rachel's eye and gave her pointed look. The diva nods her head and speaks.

"Could… could we stop please?" Rachel calls out.

"You don't have to ask my permission every time you need to go to the bathroom Rachel, you can just go." Mr. Schuester says a little patronizingly.

"It's not my bladder."

"It's the choreography."

"This again?" Mr. Schue sighs.

"We can't compete with Vocal Adrenaline with these steps. You're a great vocal coach Mr. Schue but… you're not a trained choreographer. That's what we need to be the best."

Mr. Schuester nods along but you could tell that he was getting annoyed with the situation.

"We need Dakota Stanley." Rachel presses on. "He's the best show choir choreographer in the Midwest. He understudied for the candelabra in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, we can't take sectionals without him."

"Just because he understudied doesn't mean he ever actually performed." Mr. Schuester counters.

Quinn catches Santana's eye and nods, and the girl takes this as her moment to step in. "Have you ever performed Mr. Schuester, after high school, I mean. Did you ever perform, or even try?"

Mr. Schuester looks so gob-smacked by this that he doesn't have a response. He stands there for a moment and then looks down embarrassed, before calling it a day, he leaves them with very few words, just an I'll see you Monday.

The kids all look around at each other awkwardly. "Dude Rachel, what was that?" Finn finally asks frustrated.

"I…" the girl stammers.

"I mean seriously, why are you riding him so hard?"

"Finn, I'll handle this." Quinn says to her boyfriend sweetly. "Why don't you guys get out of here okay?"

Finn casts one more look at Rachel. "Fine. Thanks Quinn."

She smiles at him and then waits patiently as the rest of the club files out, except for of course Rachel, Brittany and Santana.

"You look troubled, you okay Berry?"

The girl looked a little stricken, like she didn't expect Mr. Schuester to take the suggestion so personally. "I feel awful, I just… we need to win… but maybe, this isn't the best route to go… I mean he looked so hurt."

"Yeah Rach, where did you hear about this guy from?" Brittany asks, sounding a little hurt herself. "I thought you and I were going to work on some things together to show him."

"That would be me B." Quinn says and the other blond looks at her startled.

"You? Why?"

"Because B, Mr. Schuester doesn't take his students seriously, but I figured if we could get another adult in here, someone that Mr. Schue would have to treat as an equal then we could finally get around to making some real changes to the club. Be the best at it that we can be, I figured Dakota Stanley would be the way to go. He coaches the current national champions; if we could steal him then we have a fighting chance of winning." Quinn hates herself for every word out of her mouth. Most of what she said would be true if you didn't take into account the rumors that Dakota Stanley was every bit as mean as coach Sylvester and willing to get way more personal in his attacks in a way that even she wasn't.

"Oh, yeah… that might work." Brittany says hesitantly.

"But Mr. Schuester looked so hurt, and despite the questionable choreography he is a good coach for this club." Rachel says timidly.

"I know that, but you want to win don't you?" Quinn asks her.

"Well yeah… of course I do."

"Then you know that this needs to happen."

"Still I think I had better apologize to him…"

"You do whatever you think you need to do to clear your conscience, but just remember that without Dakota Stanley we can't win. So while you're apologizing to Mr. Schuester for trying to make the club better, keep that in mind." Quinn then turns to Brittany. "I'll see you Saturday B?"

"Yeah…"

Quinn heads over to her friend and asks quietly. "Are you still mad at me... you know about earlier?"

"What?...Oh no, I don't get it and I wish you would let us do something, but you know where I stand… it's about hiring this other guy. You're not trying to replace Mr. Schue are you?"

"No, of course not B. I just think that he can use a little help that's all."

"Okay, good. Cause I really like Mr. Schue," Brittany says smiling.

Quinn and Santana both look a little shocked. "Even after he was so mean to you?" Quinn asks hesitantly.

"Well yeah, I mean it hurt my feelings but I think that he's just under a lot of pressure that's all. He's never really been a coach before, so he's still learning."

Quinn hides her guilt behind a smile and after saying their goodbye's to the blond girl both she and Santana leave for her place. Once they are our of ear shot of Brittany and Rachel, Quinn turns to Santana. "Well I feel like shit."

"Look it's either glee club or cheerios… it's not a contest, no matter how B might feel about it." But Quinn can tell that the girl is starting to regret agreeing to destroy the club as well.

"So what's this master plan of yours' anyway? From the sound of it this Stanley guy is the answer to every prayer that this club has."

"That may be true, if it weren't for the fact that he's the show choir version of coach Sylvester. I guarantee you, the club won't last a day under his direction."

"And you think that Mr. Schuester is going to just stand there and let it happen?"

"I think that Mr. Schuester is finally starting to listen to us and that his prides been hurt so he's not going to step in unless asked. He's now had three of his students tell him that he's screwing up, you, me and Berry. His pride won't let him be around while the other guy is."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

The next couple weeks work out better than Quinn could have imagined. Santana's comment about him never actually having performed seemed to have struck a chord with the guy and he had started his own singing group. He was constantly missing practices and when he did show up he hardly participated because he was so focused on this Acafella's thing of his that he had all but dropped glee club. Things were going so badly in glee club that Quinn wasn't even sure if they would need to hire Stanley.

The infighting had gotten bad without Mr. Schuester there to play referee and to unite them. Rachel was trying to take over and run things with Mr. Schue basically gone, and both Mercedes and Kurt took umbrage at that, and so fought her at every turn, wanting to run the club themselves. Tina supported Artie, who was backing Finn, who was mad at Rachel, blaming her for Mr. Schuester losing interest in glee, so they argued with the girl as well, but they didn't like Kurt or Mercedes' ideas either and so they argued with them too.

Brittany supported Rachel and tried to push her ideas, and when the others tried to shoot her down, sometimes nicely, sometimes not so nicely, Santana would step in, and when Santana stepped in, then Quinn had to step in, if only to prevent bloodshed. It was rather ironic that things had worked out that Quinn had to basically back Rachel up.

It did cause some strain between her and Finn who felt that as his girlfriend she should side with him, but his annoyance at her was outweighed by his anger at Rachel and so Quinn wasn't too worried about it. As far as she could tell things between Finn and Rachel were over before they could really begin, which was a relief on Quinn's mind. She no longer had to worry about Finn sneaking out behind her back to be with the other girl. No things were going great for Quinn, except for one thing.

She felt guilty; she was basically destroying this club for no real reason. She was destroying this club for a coach that was only missing out on, like an additional 60 bucks a month, a fraction of what she pulled in from the school district, advertising, and various other donations. She was doing it for a friend who didn't actually have a grudge against the club, and in fact loved it and Quinn felt awful. She basically ruled this school and what did these other kids have? A dinky little singing club that wasn't hurting anyone and she was ruining it for them.

Still Quinn knew what she had to do. Once glee club was gone things would go back to normal. Finn wouldn't have to see Rachel anymore, coach Sylvester would quit stalking her about how things were going, and her father would get off her back about it as well. She could just go back to how things were before this club had come into her life.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn was going over to meet up with Brittany and Santana when she felt her heart catch in her throat. There up against Santana's locker was Puck. The two were kissing and flirting with each other and when Puck looked up and saw her, Quinn felt all of the blood rush from her face.

She is about to turn around and head the other way when Santana waves her over and she forces herself to go meet them. The smirk on the boy's face was infuriating, it was like he was holding something over her and he knew that she knew it. Still she had to face him sometime and see what he was going to do.

"Hey San," She says cautiously. "Puck," she all but snarls.

"S'up babe?" He grins at her.

"What's up San, I thought we were hanging out today?" Quinn asks her friend.

"I know but I haven't seen Puck in a while, you don't care do you?"

"Yeah Fabray, you don't care do you?" the boy leers at her.

"You can do whatever you want," Quinn sneers and then turns around abruptly and leaves.

"Whoa, hey Q, what's going on?" Santana says rushing to catch up with the blond. "I know you don't like him, but what's your deal? That was cold even for you, I put up with Finn so why can't you do the same with Puck?"

There are so many things that Quinn wants to say to that. How about the fact that Puck doesn't actually care about her, or that Santana is in love with Brittany and she knows that it hurts the other girl that Santana won't commit to her? Or how about the fact that Puck is the kind of guy who only cares about what's between a girls legs and he's willing to do anything to get it?

"Look I just don't like him, you can do better." She leans in and whispers, "You have done better, and you're making a mistake by being with him." She says talking about Brittany.

Santana steps back and quickly looks around checking that nobody over heard that, before responding angrily. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and even if I did, it's none of your business, and considering what you've been doing lately you have no right to talk to me about making mistakes. Whatever you're problem with Puck is, get over it, if I have to put up with Finn you can tolerate Puck."

"San-"

"No, I don't want to hear it, now I'm going to go hang out with _my_ boyfriend. We may not be all cliché cheerleader-football player like you and the Jolly Green Giant, but I have fun with him. He's just got back from being suspended, I haven't seen him in a couple of weeks and I want to go have some fun. You don't like it, tough."

And this right here is why Quinn couldn't tell Santana that she slept with Puck. Despite her feelings for Brittany and despite her indifference to Puck's infidelity she still considered Puck hers. Puck slept around, but none of his conquests ever talked about it, because Santana would kick their asses. And while she wasn't worried about Santana getting physical with her, she was worried about ruining their friendship. She had put enough strain on it lately.

"I'll… I'll see you around. Have fun…" Quinn hesitates but continues on anyway. She had been with Puck and she didn't understand how anyone could consider it fun. "Be careful." She tries to warn her friend.

Santana grins at her. "Don't be such a prude Quinn, and don't worry. I'll call you tonight, oh and tell B I'm sorry I couldn't make it."

Santana makes her way over to Puck and he puts his arms around her shoulder and they walk off. As they're leaving he looks back at her and smirks, while giving her a wink. And all of the memories of that night come rushing back to her along with the humiliation, the shame, the awkwardness, all of it. She had thought she was doing better, getting over it but this just showed how far off she was. She manages to hold it together, but it's touch and go for a bit, she just needs to focus on something else.

She spots Rachel and decides to see if the girl has gotten Mr. Schuester's permission to hire Dakota Stanley yet. Even though he had all but abandoned the club, he was still the teacher in charge of it and without his permission they couldn't hire the other man. Plus if she's thinking about destroying glee club she can't be thinking about Puck.

She talks to the girl and finds out that she's going to try and talk to him again on Monday. Hopefully he'll come back and let them hire Stanley. After leaving the girl, she finds Brittany waiting by her locker.

"Hey Quinn you ready for our sleep over this weekend?" The blond asks excitedly.

"Sure am, I'm thinking we should pop some popcorn, re-watch some Buffy episodes, then maybe we could do a Lion King marathon, you know _all three_ movies, and then look up some stuff for glee club. Maybe you and I could do a duet?"

"Oh my God! That would totally rock!" Brittany squeals. "Hey where's Santana?" She finally asks looking around expectantly.

"Oh… um she said she couldn't make it tonight… she's busy." Quinn tries to hedge around the reason why Santana is busy.

"She's with Puck isn't she?" Brittany's face falls and it breaks Quinn's heart a little. This is why she had suggested a whole bunch of things that Brittany would enjoy, so that she wouldn't be so sad to find out that Santana wouldn't be there, but it didn't seem to work and Brittany looked like she was about to cry.

"Oh B, I… I'm sorry," Quinn says taking the girls hand and squeezing it comfortingly.

"No it's… it's fine. He's her boyfriend and… I'm just her friend."

"Hey you know what we could do? We could cuddle on the couch and watch sad movies? And then maybe we can spend the entire evening talking about what a jerk Puck is?" Who knows, it could be fairly therapeutic for her as well.

Brittany still looks sad but smiles at her hopefully, "And maybe we could still work on a duet?"

Quinn grins at her friend and then links their arms. "We're going to come up with something so kickass that it's going to win us nationals."

Brittany laughs and the two girls make their way to Brittany's house for the night.

**s**

** A.N. So that was chapter seven, I hope you all enjoyed it. As always the next chapter will be up next Friday, so watch for that. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Standard disclaimer, I do not own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

"That stupid Mohawk," Brittany giggled.

"Oh God, I know right, it just kind of sits there like road kill."

Brittany breaks down and starts laughing so hard that she actually turns red, and her reaction gets Quinn going and soon both girls are rolling around on the ground laughing like a couple of fools. But it felt great.

It was one in the morning and while the sleep over had started off as a bit of a downer, Quinn had managed to get Brittany's mood up and before too long they were both laughing and screeching and just having a great time. Quinn and Brittany had just spent the last hour talking about all of the stupid things that Puck did and thought were cool, but really weren't. It made Brittany feel better and it was very therapeutic for Quinn.

After settling down a little, Brittany crawls over to Quinn, both girls still giggling, and snuggles up with her on a beanbag chair.

"Thanks Quinn, this has been really fun."

"Of course it was fun," Quinn says in mock offense. "You and I are the two most awesome people in the world."

"Hell yeah we are!" Brittany pauses for a moment and gets a kind of far-away look on her face, obviously thinking about Santana, and Quinn pulls her a little closer.

"Hey, where did you go just now?" She asks softly.

"It's nothing," Brittany mumbles sadly.

"You want to talk about it?"

"I can't," Brittany whispers.

"Why not? You know you can talk to me about anything."

"I want to but…"

"But what, sweetie?"

"I promised I wouldn't."

"Oh," Quinn says understandingly, before thinking of an idea. "Would you mind then if I told you a story?"

Brittany looks at her friend weirdly but nods her head slowly in confusion. "Okay?"

"You see, I have these two friends, one of them is this totally awesome, badass, dancer chick, who is like my sister." Brittany smiles at this. "You don't know her, but her name is… Whitney, yeah her name is Whitney." Brittany giggles. "So anyway, my friend Whitney is totally into my other friend, this fiery, totally smokin', fierce, fun, and protective girl named… let's call her Sandra, you don't know her either. So anyway, my two friends are totally into each other, and they make the most awesome couple ever, I'm hoping to be Maid of Honor at their wedding someday." Brittany lightly sniffles here.

"But you see, my two friends are going through a bit of a… well you could call it a rough patch, Whitney is ready and willing to go public with their relationship, she doesn't want to hide anymore, she loves Sant- I mean Sandra, but she's feeling tired of being like this, dirty little secret. Sandra, however much she loves Brit- I mean Whitney, and she does, trust me I can tell, just isn't ready to make that kind of leap yet. So sometimes she makes stupid decisions that sometimes hurt Whitney.

"Like just recently she went off to be with her beard, not her boyfriend, beard, rather than hang out with Whitney. His name is Douchebag Von I'mAManWhore." Brittany stifles a sound that is somewhere between a laugh and a sob at this and then nuzzles in closer to Quinn, who starts to stroke her friend's hair. "Anyway, both Whitney and I know that Sandra doesn't love this guy, I mean who could, his last name is I'mAManWhore, but she's scared and not quite ready to make the full leap into to being exclusive with Whitney. Now I do try to talk some sense into Sandra, but Whitney and I can both attest to the fact that the girl can be a bit of a hard head, and I'll keep trying to talk sense into her. And I truly believe that one day soon it will work, because Sandra really does love Whitney, but until then my friend Whitney is feeling really hurt and sad right now.

"So Brittany, how would you suggest I go about telling Whitney that I know what's going on and that I'm there for her if she ever wants to talk about it or just needs a shoulder to cry on? How can I let her know I'm there for her when technically I'm not supposed to know about the situation, and Whitney has promised Sandra that she wouldn't talk about it, that for now they would keep it a secret. Because I love Whitney and seeing her sad really hurts and I just want to make it better for her." Brittany is silently crying now.

Brittany clutches at Quinn's shirt and whimpers. "Why is Sandra so ashamed to be with Whitney? I don't understand, is there something wrong with Whitney, is she too stupid or not pretty enough?"

"Oh no sweetie, not at all. Whitney is one of the best people in the world, she gorgeous and absolutely brilliant in her own way. I'll tell you right now, Whitney is about as close to perfect as anyone can get," Quinn says soothingly.

"Then why doesn't Sandra want to be with her, why is she hiding and going out with this Douchebag guy, when she supposedly has all of these feelings for Whitney?"

"Because sweetie, despite the tough front that Sandra puts up she is scared. They live in a place where people aren't as accepting of what they have as they should be. She's afraid that something bad will happen if they come out, and when Sandra gets scared, she sometimes makes bad decisions, so she went out with this guy to maintain the cover I suppose."

"Well why does she have to go out with someone else, couldn't we… I mean, couldn't they just not date anyone, and then exclusively not date each other, and then when Sandra is ready come out, they could come out together? I think Whitney is tired of being the second choice, I think she's scared that Sandra won't ever be ready, that she will always be Sandra's second choice, and Whitney doesn't want to spend the rest of her life as something that Sandra is embarrassed of. Whitney doesn't want to force Sandra into anything, she just wants some sign that Sandra is as committed to the relationship as she is… or at least that's how I think Whitney feels anyway."

"I…" Quinn isn't sure what to say to this and tries to think of something that could make this situation better.

"It's okay Quinn, Whitney isn't expecting an answer, that's between her and Sandra, she just needs to vent to someone, that's all."

Quinn smiles sadly, "Well then how do I let Whitney know that I'm available?"

"I think she already knows and is so grateful to have you in her life, I think that she loves you almost as much as I do and that she feels, or will feel, a lot better after having talked to you, that she is grateful that she can turn to you."

They stay there together just dozing off, and just before sleep takes Quinn she hears Brittany whisper to her. "Thanks Quinn."

**s**

**xXx- Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

The weekend came and went and while Brittany was still a little down for most of it, it helped that she was able to talk to Quinn about it, well about Whitney and Sandra anyway. It was a tiny loophole that her friend had provided her so that she could still get it all out there and keep her promise to Santana. Santana probably wouldn't see it that way but Brittany needed someone to confide in so she didn't feel too bothered by it.

They were in Santana's car driving to Carmel High to go speak to Dakota Stanley. Rachel had gone and talked to Mr. Schuester about glee club earlier today and he had finally agreed to let them hire the man, also as a plus to her, Finn and Rachel were no longer speaking to each other and Finn was even threatening to quit the club if they went through with this. So it seemed like she no longer had to worry about those two.

Quinn was in the front seat and Brittany was lying down in the back and the silence was getting a little awkward. Santana knew that she had hurt Brittany's feelings by being with Puck for the weekend instead of her but she wasn't willing to admit she was wrong or even talk about it with Quinn there. Brittany was starting to reconsider her feelings for the girl. She loved Santana and while she didn't want to force the girl into doing anything she wasn't ready for she did want some kind of sign that Santana felt something for her, that she wasn't just some booty call to be used whenever it was convenient.

"Sooo…" Quinn finally breaks the silence. "Do you guys want to come over to my place tonight, my parents are out and Finn has a family thing?"

"I'm up for it, but Santana probably has to go hang out with Puck." Brittany says angrily.

"The fuck, Britt's he's my boyfriend… besides," Santana looks in the mirror at Brittany trying to convey to the girl to shut up. "What do you care what I do with my boyfriend?"

"Then what does that make me!?"

"You… you're… Please Brittany not right now," She looks nervously over at Quinn.

"No, pull over, we're handling this now."

"Brittany-" Santana pleads.

"Now!"

Santana pulls over and the three girls sit there in silence before Quinn finally speaks up. "So… I'll just, you know… step outside, and give you a moment…"

"Thank you Quinn." Brittany says.

Santana gives her a look begging her not to leave. Quinn takes her hand and gently squeezes it before leaving the car. Just as she's about to close the door she looks at Santana and says. "You're braver than you think." And with that she closes the door and steps away, taking a seat on a nearby rock. She sends up a little prayer and hopes that the two can work this out.

She sends out a quick text to Rachel, letting her know so that she can tell the rest of the group that the three cheerios would be a little late.

**From: Rachel- What Why!? Do you have any idea how important this is!? The future of our club is at stake and as a member you need to be here for this! You guys need to get here now!**

Quinn rolls her eyes at the girl's dramatics

**From: Quinn- Don't worry we'll be there soon, we're just having some car troubles.**

** From: Rachel- Are you guys okay!? Do you need assistance, should I call someone, my Daddy knows things about cars should I call him?**

** From: Quinn- Don't worry, it's just a flat tire, changing it now, we'll be there soon.**

_'I hope.'_ Quinn thinks to herself as she glances over to the car and see's that both Santana and Brittany are crying.

It would be 45 minutes before Quinn heard her name being called. She had stopped watching them about 20 minutes ago and had started playing a game on her phone. However that was going to end soon as her battery was about to die.

"Quinn! Come on we're already late," Brittany calls out to her from the front seat, a huge grin on her face, her face a little red and puffy from crying, but she was smiling and so Quinn grinned back.

She gets into the back and looks between them. "So everything okay between you two?"

"Quinn… I have something to tell you," Santana says hesitantly before taking a deep breath. "Quinn… I'm gay, I'm gay and I'm in love with Brittany."

Santana is watching her nervously for a response, so Quinn leans forward and hugs her, placing a kiss to her forehead. "Santana, I am so proud of you," She whispers. Yeah she already knew, but Quinn was the first person that Santana had ever told, this was a big deal for her, and she really was proud of the girl.

"I… I've never told anyone that." She laughs as happy tears fall down her face. "I'm… I'm gay, and I love Brittany." She turns to Brittany. "I love you, and I want to be with you, just you. I'll break it up with Puck tomorrow."

"I love you too," Brittany croaks out.

"I'm not ready to be fully out, I'm just not. I can't do this publicly, and I'm not even ready to tell my parents yet, but I promise that I won't date anyone else, it will be just you. I… I hope you can be okay with that?" Santana seems nervous.

Brittany takes Santana's hand in her own. "That fine." The girls stare into each other's eyes longingly and it's about ten seconds before Quinn decides that it's getting awkward.

"Oh go ahead and kiss you two, you're getting disgusting," Quinn jokes.

Both girls laugh and then lean over and kiss. It's a strange sensation for Quinn. She is so happy for the both of them, she's glad that they have worked things out and are together, but at the same time watching them kiss, she feels like her heart is in her throat. It's a weird sensation and she isn't sure what to make of it. So she pushes it to the back of her mind and focuses on the joy.

When the two pull apart Santana turns to Quinn. "You're the only person who knows, so please, please don't tell anyone. You're my best friend and you kind of knew already, but I wanted you to know officially, you know? It was important to me that we told you first, but you can't tell anyone else okay?" Santana looks nervous, like she almost can't believe that Quinn's really okay with this.

"Of course not San, I promise, and if you guys need help or just need to talk, I'm here."

"Thanks for being so cool with this. About me… you know…" Santana bites her lip nervously.

Quinn just reaches over and squeezes the girl's shoulder affectionately.

"Yeah, Quinn kinda rocks," Brittany says, lightening the mood.

"What you mean 'kinda'?" Quinn says jokingly.

"Right, _totally_ rocks," Brittany agrees.

"Alright bitches, let's get going!"

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

_8,000 dollars! 8,000 dollars for a single freaking number! _Plus a _10,000_ dollar bonus fee for placing in the top three. That part didn't bother Quinn so much, they weren't going to be around long enough to ever compete, but the 8,000 dollars presented a problem.

She was currently at home laying on the couch and watching TV; her father had locked himself in his study and wouldn't likely be coming out anytime soon. Her mother was out at a book club, _'book club._' She scoffs, trying to think of the last time she had actually seen her mother pick up a book. No this was a weekly, gossip get together, that they liked to pretty up as a book club.

She had no idea what to do about this money problem. Santana and Brittany had both said that they would try to think of an idea, but they were hanging out together tonight, alone, so she didn't expect them to even remember her name, let alone come up with a way to collect 8,000 dollars. The other glee club members had been so disheartened by the news that she doubted that they would come up with anything either.

She was aimlessly channel surfing trying to think of something, anything that they could do or sell to get that kind of cash. Hell she even considered asking her parents, but that was not something she was willing to do at this point, and hopefully it wouldn't ever come to that. She could just imagine how that conversation would go. It would probably work out just as well as when she had told her father that she had joined glee club.

She's about to switch the channel again when something catches her eyes. It a scene from some old 80's maybe early 90's movie and it's a bunch of mostly naked cheerleaders washing a car…. "Holy shit!" She exclaims.

That was it, it was perfect. No, she had never thought she would participate in something as cliché as a "sexy" car wash, but damn it that could work. She would just need to get coach Sylvester involved, but that wouldn't be an issue. They would wear their swimsuits, and cheer skirts and then charge what would be an exorbitant amount of money from the perverts that would show up. It could work. She jumped up and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and then began to work out how many cars they would need to wash and how much they would have to charge in order to reach their goal.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

It had been rather easy to set the whole thing up. Once she had explained to coach Sylvester her plan and why it was necessary, the woman had made it mandatory for all cheerios to show up, threatening to cut anyone who didn't. She had even gone so far as to set up and organize the whole thing for her. She got them a prime location, had gotten them the necessary supplies, and had even somehow worked out an advertisement with a local radio station to draw attention to it.

And they were certainly rolling in the doe. They had only been here for about two hours and they were already up 3,000. It was pretty impressive. She glances over at Santana and Brittany who are at the next car over laughing and giggling with each other and lets out a wistful sigh. She's happy for them but she can't help the longing she is feeling. Maybe it's because her and Finn are in a really rocky place right now, he doesn't seem to be into Rachel anymore but he doesn't seem to be turning that attention back to her.

He hadn't even showed up to help with this. He had joined Mr. Schue's group, the Acafellas and had told her that while he wasn't going to quit glee, he also wasn't going to do anything to support the decision to hire Dakota Stanley. Worst of all, it seemed that Puck had joined up with them as well. Apparently a lot of older women showed up to these shows and they were Pucks current flavor of the month. And since Santana had broken up with him two days ago, he had seemed a little more restless as he trolled for women. Still as long as he didn't say anything to Finn, it didn't matter to her what he did, and if being in the Acafellas kept him busy and away from her, then she wished the group a long and successful future.

"Excuse me, Quinn." Quinn looks over to see a nervous looking Rachel Berry. She's wearing a simple dark blue one piece and is biting her lip. "Can I talk to you?"

"What do you want Berry?"

"Look I know you don't like me and… recently; I'll admit… that I have given you good reason not to, but… I just want to thank you. You've gone above and beyond what anyone expected for this club, you've organized all of this. Glee club really has a chance at being something special here and it's partially because of you so… thank you."

Rachel's gratitude is like a punch to the gut, every action she has taken so far has been to destroy this club. "No Rachel don't tha-"

"I know, I know, you only did it for Finn and Brittany. I get that, and I know that this doesn't change anything between us. But you still helped me, no matter how inadvertently or even reluctantly. So thank you. This club means everything to us, to me. I guess I can't speak for everyone else, but for me this club is a chance to shine, to stand out… to finally… maybe make some friends." Yeah, that punch to the gut feeling Quinn was experiencing just evolved into a twisting knife.

"To the rest of the school we're just a bunch of losers, but in glee club it's different. I can shine, I can be a star and I'm with people who can understand that. It's nice to have a place to go where I'm not looked down on. So you may not think it's a big deal, but you doing all of this, it means a lot to me, so I guess I just wanted you to know that."

Quinn looks away unable to continue looking into the earnest eyes of Rachel Berry. "It's fine Rachel, really, don't worry about it."

"Okay, I'll leave you alone, just really, thank you." And with that Rachel turns and leaves. Quinn watches the girl go, just kind of staring off into the distance. She gasps loudly and jumps, startled when someone taps her shoulder.

"Ah ha ha ha, what's up with you?" Santana cackles. "What did the dwarf-oof" Brittany elbows Santana. "Alright, alright, I'm sorry, geeze," Santana mutters under her breath. "So what did _Berry_ want?" Santana asks, while pointedly looking at Brittany.

"She wanted to thank me." Quinn says with regret in her voice.

"Thank you?" Santana asks.

"For helping out the glee club." Quinn explains and a look of understanding crosses Santana's face.

"Oh yeah!" Brittany squeals before hugging Quinn. "I can't believe I forgot to thank you as well. You've been amazing about this whole glee club thing. I know you just joined for Finn but you have worked so hard to make it awesome. You organized this whole car wash to help pay for a new dancing coach for us, you've gone out of your way to support me _and_ Rachel during meetings. You've been great, so thanks Quinn, you're an awesome friend." Brittany releases the hug and tugs on Santana's hand. "C'mon San, I want to go wash that red car."

Brittany skips away a little oblivious, but Santana hesitates as she watches the stricken look on her friend's face. Quinn just motions for the girl to go, a fake smile forced onto her face.

"Quinn, look you're doing what you have to-"

"Hurry up San!" Brittany shouts over.

"Go," Quinn leans over and whispers, "be with your girl."

Santana hesitates for a moment and then Quinn waves her off dismissively, a smirk on her face. Santana laughs and then takes off after Brittany.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn did her best to not bite her lip or even show any type of emotion. This is what she had been working towards and it was finally about to come to fruition. It was only five minutes in to their first practice with Dakota Stanley and the man had managed to not only insult almost every member of the club but he had actually driven all of them to get up and leave. Five minutes was all it took, just like she had predicted. The man had pointed out every flaw and insecurity that each member of the club had and they weren't going to put up with it.

Glee club was finally over; this was exactly what she wanted. Things could go back to normal, she wouldn't have to come to this place and try to make nice with people that she wasn't friends with. She wouldn't have to worry about what being in this club was doing to her social standing, coach Sylvester would finally get off her back. And she would no longer have to have anything to do with Rachel Berry. Things could be normal, just like they were before Finn joined this damn club.

So why did she feel so awful? Why, as she was watching Stanley tear down the people in this club did she feel like her heart was constricting. Why did the looks of confusion on Artie's and Tina's faces affect her so personally, or the look of disbelief on Mercedes? How come she felt like Finn's anger and Kurt's offense were zeroing in on her heart?

A look to her left showed that even Santana was feeling affected by this. She wasn't showing any emotion on her face, but if you were as adept at reading Santana as Quinn was, you could see the disappointment in her eyes. And Brittany, Brittany who didn't have any idea about how to hide her emotions, the look of hurt and betrayal and confusion as she watched this club fall apart felt like a vice on her heart.

And finally Rachel, she couldn't tell you why, but Rachel's reaction was the worst. After being subject to Dakota Stanley's criticisms, finishing them off by telling her that she needed a nose job, the young diva held her head up high and began to march from the room with as much dignity as possible. But what made it bad for Quinn is that she could see that the girl had lost all of the fight that she had. Rather than a look of righteous indignation, like she usually wore when she marched from the room in a huff, she was biting her lip, her eyes were watering and Quinn could tell that it was all that the girl could do to not rush from the room crying.

She hated Rachel Berry, didn't she? So why did that girls reaction affect her so much worse than even Brittany's? The answer was simple, Rachel was a fighter, just like Quinn was, she knew what she wanted and she went for it. And seeing someone who was so like her where it mattered, seeing someone like that just give up and lose all of their fight, it was like looking in a mirror. This club meant everything to the people here, and she had just destroyed it.

And what about herself, even she was starting to enjoy this place. As the days and weeks passed she had found herself looking forward to coming here every day and singing and just spending time with her friends and boyfriend, as well as the other members of this club. As she watched the members of the club leave the room, in various degrees of distress, Quinn knew she had to stop this, but how, what could she do? And what about coach Sylvester, if this didn't happen the woman would give her hell. Assuming she managed to keep her position on the cheerios, let alone her spot as captain, the woman would make her life a living hell. The psychotic woman was determined to destroy this club, and if that didn't happen, if Quinn failed to do this, then she could expect every single day to become a brand new experience in pain. Coach would make sure of it. She had no choice, she had to let this happen.

Yet despite this, when Rachel reached the door, ready to walk out of glee club for the very last time, Quinn couldn't stop herself. No matter what the consequences, she couldn't let this happen. She had a choice to make and she knew what the right thing to do.

"Rachel! Wait! Everyone, just stop and hold on a second!" Every head in the room turned towards her, all of them wondering what Quinn wanted.

Quinn takes a deep breath and steels herself for what she is about to do. She puts on her most fierce head bitch face on and thinks dejectedly. _'Oh God, I know I'm going to regret this.'_

"Mr. Stanley, your services are no longer required. We have paid you 8,000 dollars to come and choreograph a winning number for us_, not_, to tear us down. We have enough people here who want to do that, we don't need someone inside who does the same thing."

Quinn turns and looks around at each member in the eye, quickly moving past both Rachel and Brittany, who are looking at her with such adoration that she wants to cry, because she knows she doesn't deserve it. "Please, stay."

"Barbara Streisand." Rachel says smugly, and everyone looks at the girl in confusion, because while it was well known that the girl tried to work her into every conversation, nobody was sure where she was going with this.

"What about her?" Dakota Stanley asks rudely.

"When Barbara was a young ingénue, everyone told her that in order to be a star she would have to get a nose job. Thankfully she refused."

Stanley looks warily from Quinn to Rachel and scoffs, "Where is this going, Yentl?"

"Where this is going is that Quinn is right, we don't need you." She turns and faces the rest of the club. "Let's face it; we're never going to be the dancers that Vocal Adrenaline are, that's not why we're going to win. We'll win because we're different, because we're special." As she is saying this she is making googley eyes at Finn and he is returning the look with just as much intensity.

_'Yep, already regretting this.'_ Quinn thinks in annoyance.

Mercedes smirks, "They told J-Lo that her booty was too big." She then takes her place right next to Rachel.

"Curtis Mayfield was more successful after he became paralyzed." Artie threw in, rejoining the group, with Tina following him.

"Jim Abbot." Finn joins in, still looking at Rachel. "He was a one armed pitcher for the Yankee's, he threw a no hitter."

"Okay, so misfits, spazzes and cripples can make it too, what's your point?" Dakota asks angrily.

"The point is, we don't need you." Brittany says, still looking at Quinn gratefully.

Rachel steps up right next to the man and smirks. "And I'm taller than you." She says smugly.

"Barely…" is the grumbled reply.

Once Dakota Stanley took off in a huff, completely embarrassed about being fired, the group lets out a cheer. They all laugh and hug each other, excited about the prospect of getting glee back to the way it was before they decided to hire that guy, and back when Mr. Schuester was here. Well everyone was, except Quinn. She had taken a step back and was quietly making her way to the door, hopefully before anyone could notice she was gone.

"Hey Quinn!" Finn shouts, bringing the attention of the club back to her, as he dashes over to her. "Where are you going?" He asks, smiling. "You saved the day, we should go celebrate."

"Yeah Quinn, you totally showed that guy!" Mercedes shouts from the back. "You rocked girl!"

"Totally!" Brittany agrees excitedly, rushing over and enveloping the girl in a hug.

"Brittany's right Quinn, if you hadn't stepped in just now… well the rest of us were ready to give up. But not you, you stood up for this club, you're a hero." Rachel says sincerely, and Quinn flinches at the word.

She's no hero, all she was, was too much of a coward to go through with a plan that she had set in motion. At the very best, most generous outlook she could say that she had somewhat redeemed herself for trying to sabotage the club.

"Please don't say that…" She mumbles.

Finn leans down and kisses her passionately. "Yes, you are." He says to her, grinning from ear to ear. "Even though it didn't work out with that guy, you've spent the last 8 weeks trying to make this club the best that it could be. Yeah that guy was a jerk, but you didn't know that, and when we were all ready to walk away and give up on this club, you didn't. You stood up to him, and we're stronger for it. You're amazing."

"I… I have to go." Quinn says, trying to keep her composure, but her voice is cracking. She turns to leave once again and this time everyone lets her. Everyone, watching on in confusion except for Santana, who understands how Quinn is feeling. She doesn't agree with it, Quinn made it right as far as she was concerned, but she understands it.

"W-w-w-what was that all about?" Tina asks in concern. "Is sh-sh-she okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine; she just doesn't like all the attention." Santana quickly lies, covering for her friend. "You, midge-ouch!" Santana yelps, when Brittany elbows her for calling Rachel that. "Right, sorry, Berry, you and the rest of these guys figure out a way to get Mr. Schuester to come back full time, Q's done enough now. I'll go talk to Quinn, she's fine don't worry about it, and don't mention it." Santana orders them.

"Wait, I'll go talk to her, I'm her boyfriend." Finn volunteers, and it's all Santana can do to just sneer at the boy.

"You know what, Finnept, you're the last person who's in any position to be offering to help her."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean!?"

It's on the tip of her tongue to lay into the guy. Just to go after him for all of the crap that he's been putting her best friend through. But she had promised Quinn that she would support her decision to be with him. It was a stupid decision and a stupid promise, but she had made them none the less.

"Nothing." Santana grumbles. "Just trust me, she'll want to talk to me more than you right now, I'll have her call you later. Quinn's just having a stressful week, that's all. Let me handle it."

Finn reluctantly agrees, while the rest of the group all nods in understanding, except Brittany who looks at Santana suspiciously, because while she didn't know what was up with Quinn, she knew that what Santana had said wasn't the whole story.

The two cheerleaders leave the choir room behind to go catch up to their friend. "San, what's up with Quinn?"

"Look B, why don't you head back to the club and celebrate with the others, I can take care of Quinn on my own, and then we'll catch up later, okay?" Santana suggests gently.

"She's my friend too San, and I don't know what's going on, but I know for a fact that that wasn't about just having a rough week. She looked guilty, like she was hiding something…. Is it her parents, did they hurt her again!?" Brittany screeches quietly, already starting to see red at the thought, and reaching for her cell to call her daddy, to have them arrested.

"No, Britt's it's not that, trust me I've been hyper vigilant about watching out for that. It's something else, I'm pretty sure I know what's up but it's kind of a secret… and I don't know if Quinn will want to tell you." Santana finishes apologetically.

Brittany halts abruptly. "What!? Why not!? We're besties, we don't keep secrets, did I do something wrong, is Quinn mad at me!?" Brittany feels a little sick at the thought, mentally going over their interactions the past few days, and trying to remember where she may have screwed up at.

"No baby, of course not." Santana hurries to reassure the girl.

"Then I want to help her, let's go." Brittany states firmly.

"I too, would like to accompany you." They hear a voice state and when they turn around they see Rachel Berry standing there, having followed them.

"Why the hell would you want to come, Berry? You and Quinn aren't exactly friends, she goes out of her way to mess with you and we all know that you've been trying to mac on her boyfriend? So what the hell makes you think that Quinn would even want to see you, let alone talk to you?" Santana asks, angrily taking a step towards the girl.

Rachel takes a step back, hastily, when Santana moves towards her, but stops after the initial step, and then stares defiantly at the Latina. "I know that I may have made some questionable acts towards Quinn, just as she has towards me, but I feel that recently we have made strides in coming to an agreement with each other. Plus Finn is worried about her, and asked me to go and check on her, he doesn't seem to trust you." Both Santana and Brittany scowl at that, "And finally she is a member of glee club, and while we may not be friends, her actions have really helped me and if I can return the favor then I would sincerely like to."

"Ugh, fine whatever. But you stay the hell back, and if Q wants you gone, you're gone. Got that!" Santana tells Rachel angrily, before turning to Brittany, her features softening, knowing she can't win an argument with the girl. "Fine B, you can come too, just don't be too mad at her."

_'Or me._' She thinks, because while she hadn't actually planned anything, she had known what Quinn was up to and had fully supported Quinn in her efforts.

They catch up to Quinn as she's heading towards Coach Sylvester's office, she's dressed in a white sundress and a dark blue cardigan, her cheerio's uniform neatly folded in her arms.

"Q, what the hell are you doing?" Santana asking what the other two girls are thinking. "What are you doing with your uniform?"

Quinn shrugs carelessly. "I'm resigning from the cheerios."

"What!? Why!?" Brittany asks startled by this revelation. "Is this because of glee club!? Because you can do both, you have been doing both!"

"I'm resigning from glee club as well, so you see, I can't do both." Quinn says smiling glibly, acting as if nothing was bothering her.

"You're resigning from glee club!? After all of the work you put into it! Come on Quinn, don't quit, we're a team, we need you!" Rachel shouts.

Quinn scoffs, "A team, yeah right. Trust me on this Rachel, Brittany, I am the last person in the world that you want to be on your team."

Brittany takes one of Quinn's hands in her own, "How can you say that, you've been amazing. In glee, in cheerios, you always look out for your teammates. There is no one better to have on your team than you."

"Brittany…" Quinn lets out a frustrated sigh. "Britts, I was trying to destroy glee club. Coach Sylvester came to me and asked me to destroy the club so that she could get back her full budget. I agreed. I chickened out in the end and couldn't go through with it. Coach is going to kick me off the team now, so I'm resigning from the cheerios before she can kick me off the team. And as for glee club, well… you can't really say I was ever a part of it, considering I spent the entire time trying to destroy it."

Brittany looks at Quinn in shock as she drops Quinn's hand and takes a step back, her eyes beginning to water. "How… how can…. How could you? You lied from the beginning? All those times you helped me in glee club, the idea for hiring Dakota Stanley, all of it…?"

"I'm sorry B, I didn't want to hurt you-"

"No! You didn't think about me, you were only thinking about yourself, how could you do this?"

"Britt, she was just doing what she thought was best, what she thought she had to." Santana steps in gently.

Brittany turns and looks at Santana furiously. "Did you know about this!?"

"No, she had no idea, it was all me." Quinn interrupts.

Brittany gives Quinn, one last look of betrayal, before running away.

"Brittany!" Santana calls out.

"Go." Quinn says smiling sadly at Santana.

"What about you, it… you're hurting right now too."

"Go. San, I'll make sure you keep your spot, now go."

Santana hesitates. "Quinn, I don't care about that, not right now-"

"Go San, she needs you."

Santana gives her one last look, an internal battle going on in her mind about whether to leave or not. Quinn motions one last time for Santana to go and the Latina listens. Quinn watches her chase after her girlfriend and then turns to Rachel.

"So, you're still here? Do you still want to tell me that I'm a hero and that you want me in glee club, or maybe you want to tell me what an awful person I am, call me a bitch. Go ahead, you wouldn't be wrong." Quinn shrugs.

"No, I don't think you're a bad person." Rachel says kindly and Quinn stares at her in shock. "I think that you were in a rough spot and you made some poor decisions, but ultimately," Rachel takes a step closer to Quinn and smiles. "Ultimately, you made the right choice. When the moment came you did the right thing."

Tears begin to fall from Quinn's eyes. "I've been awful to you; I've manipulated you, why are you being so nice to me, why do you care?"

"Well I haven't exactly been a saint either… I kissed-"

"I know." Quinn interrupts and Rachel looks at her in shock.

"How?"

"I saw you, it's part of the reason why I joined glee club in the first place, to keep an eye on you, and it's partly why I tried to destroy it as well."

Rachel looks down ashamed and then looks up at her bashfully. "So you see, neither of us has been particularly nice to each other."

"I guess not." Quinn manages to chuckle.

"Look, I can't do anything about your whole cheerio situation, but… I can do something about glee. Please don't quit, please stay. I know you weren't really into it before, but something must have stopped you from going through with your plan, something must have made you want glee club to continue. So please, don't quit."

"Rachel I…"

"Please Quinn."

"I'll… I'll think about it."

"Okay, I just… I hope to see you in glee tomorrow."

After Rachel leaves, Quinn continues on her way to coach Sylvester's office. She's going to turn in her uniform and resign from the cheerios rather than be kicked out. Hopefully she will be able to keep some of her dignity. After that, well, she'll get to work on getting Brittany to forgive her. Her friend was angry and hurt, and with good reason. She wasn't quite sure where to start though, her and Brittany had never really fought before, but Quinn figured their friendship was strong enough to withstand this. It might be a little awkward for a while but they would be fine.

She knocks on Sylvester's door and waits for the woman to call her in; she is nervously tapping her foot in anticipation. When she hears "Enter." She takes a second to compose herself and then confidently enters the office.

"Coach Sylvester." She greets the woman.

"Q," She eyes the younger girl's uniform. "What are you doing out of uniform?"

"I'm here to resign from the cheerios. Glee club is still on, my plan failed. So rather than let you kick me out, I'm resigning." Quinn takes the seat opposite of coach Sylvester who is watching her with polite interest. "If you want my opinion, Santana will make a great new captain. She knows the different parts, she's a great tumbler, and most importantly the girls on the squad that don't respect her, fear her. She'll be able to keep people in line."

"That's a fascinating story Q, however there is one problem-"

"Santana didn't fail," Quinn interrupts. "I acted alone, it was my plan that failed, and she shouldn't have to leave the squad due to my mistakes."

Sue Sylvester just raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. "I was going to say, before you so rudely interrupted me, that I am not accepting your resignation."

"What? Why? You said that if I didn't destroy glee club you were kicking me off the squad."

Sylvester just rolls her eyes and places her hands behind her head in a relaxed manner, and starts to swivel left and right on her chair. "I just said that to get you motivated. Fear, I have found, is the best motivation that you can give a student. Fear is how you raise children to be the sheep they need to be in order to survive in this world. Now some people, like myself and maybe someday you, rise above that and become rams, but-"

"Don't you mean some people become wolves?" Quinn asks, amused by how crazy the woman could be sometimes.

"Don't be gross Quinn, wolves eat sheep, if people changed from sheep to wolves that would make them cannibals, and do you know what would happen then? Anarchy."

"Besides, and if you ever repeat this you'll find yourself waking up in the middle of a field in Ecuador with no memories of who you are or how you got there, but I need you, Santana, and Brittany to take nationals. This year's crop of girls just can't hack it without you." Coach Sylvester suddenly leans forward and glares at the younger girl. "So go home, get over whatever it is that's bothering you, and don't you ever let me see you out of uniform again. Dismissed."

"Yes, coach, thank you coach." As Quinn goes to leave she is stopped by Sue's voice.

"Oh don't thank me Q, you still failed me and until I have that national's championship trophy I plan to make life very interesting for you."

Quinn lowers her head in defeat and then raises it defiantly, "I look forward to it." She then turns and leaves.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

When Quinn got home the first thing she did was send a text to Santana.

**From: Quinn- So is B still mad at me?**

She only has to wait a minute for Santana's reply.

**From: Santana- She's cooled down, she was hurt and she is still a little mad but I think once you guys talk it out you should be good. And I've been talking to her as well, she's just feeling a little betrayed, you guys will be fine though.**

** From: Santana- Hey Q, I'm going to tell Brittany about my involvement. She shouldn't just be angry at you I was a part of it too, and since we're both off the cheerios now, I figure it's better to tell her now, rather than let her find out from someone else later.**

** From: Quinn- If you want to tell Brittany go ahead, but I don't mind taking all of the blame and you really didn't do much. However you don't need to worry we're not off the cheerios, I talked to Sylvester, life will be interesting for me for a while, but you should be good.**

** From: Santana- That's good to know, I'll still talk to Britt and I'm still going tell her, I don't want to keep any secrets from her, and besides, despite what you may think it wasn't just you who did this, I did it too.**

** From: Quinn- Thanks San, hey if B isn't too mad at me tell her that I love her and that I'm sorry.**

** From: Santana- Of course I'll tell her, I'll see you tomorrow Q.**

** From: Quinn- See you tomorrow.**

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

As Quinn lay in bed that night she couldn't sleep. She rolls over and checks her clock, it's now officially 2 in the morning and she just can't shake the thought that something is wrong. She just can't recall it. She's missing something and she just can't figure out what.

She rolls back over and lets out a frustrated sigh. Tomorrow was going to suck, no sleep and a vindictive coach Sylvester, plus she was going to have to do some serious groveling to get Brittany to stop being mad at her. Yeah she couldn't possibly imagine how tomorrow could possibly get any worse.

Quinn rolls over and pulls the cover over her head, and finally, just as she's about to fall asleep her eye's shoot wide open and she quickly sits up. She knows exactly what's wrong. Something that should have happened, hasn't. She was late, like really late. This shouldn't be possible but she has to be sure.

Quinn quickly jumps out of bed and throws on a pair of sneakers, not even bothering to change out of her PJ's. She sneaks into her parent's room and snags her father's keys and takes his car, quickly making her way to the store. Once there she grabs a box of home pregnancy tests, doing her best to keep calm. She completely ignores the snooty and judgmental look that the cashier is giving her. Her mind is completely focused on hoping and praying that this was just a scare, that she wasn't really… well… that. It happened once, just once and Puck had said that he would handle the protection. She couldn't really be pregnant could she?

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn stared at the little plus sign in horror, desperately trying to will it away, praying over and over again that it was a mistake and that it would magically change, but she knew that it would do her no good. That nothing she did or said would change what was happening. This was her third time taking the test and each time it had come back positive. There was no doubt about it, she was pregnant.

Her! Quinn Fabray, youngest captain of the Cheerio's in over a decade, the founder and head of the celibacy club, was pregnant.

How could this have happened? Okay, she knew how it happened, but not 'how' it happened. She remembered she had asked about protection, and Puck had said he had it… no, wait, oh God no, he had said 'don't worry about it.' How could she have been so stupid?

Quinn sinks to the bottom of her bathroom floor in a daze. It just didn't register, she was pregnant, and she couldn't be, she just couldn't. What was she going to do? Her life was over.

Tears begin to pool in her eyes and she rests her head on her knees and begins to cry silently, her body shaking with suppressed sobs, as she tries to make sense of everything, tries to figure out where it had all gone wrong.

**s**

**A.N. Alright, so this chapter was a pain in the ass to write and I'm not particularly happy with how it turned out. But I don't know that I could have written it any better and so I apologize, but hopefully you all aren't too disappointed. **

**I had to get through a lot of things in this chapter, I needed to cement the Un-Holy Trinities place in glee club, I needed to get Santana and Brittany officially together. Please remember that Quintana is end game, it's coming, and it will happen, just not yet. And finally I needed Quinn to discover that she was pregnant. That was a lot to do in just one chapter, so that's why it's so long. I try to keep my chapters around the 3 to 4,000 word mark, and while I won't say that this will be the longest chapter I write, there is a pretty good chance of it. Chapter 8 ends with us catching up with the Quinn in the first scene of this story. You can see that I used the first paragraph of the story as the last scene for this chapter as a kind of way to bring the story full circle. From here on in, things start to get interesting.**

**Chapter 9 will be up next Friday.**


	9. Chapter 9

**I'm going to be super busy this weekend so I figured I would post chapter 9 a day early as this is the only time I'll really have to post anything, so here you go, I hope you enjoy it. Standard disclaimer, I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

Quinn hadn't moved from her spot on the bathroom floor in over 4 hours, she was still in shock. The first light of the sun was just peaking in through her bedroom window. She had run out of tears early on but she couldn't move or think or do anything right now. Her entire being was consumed with just one thought, I'm pregnant and my life is over.

She would never get out of this town, the odds were against her from the beginning, but pregnant at sixteen pretty much cemented her place as a Lima loser for the rest of her life. She would be lucky to be able to go to the nearby community college let alone even a university in the state. Her social life was over, once this got out, she had pretty much guaranteed herself the reputation of school slut. Completely ignoring the fact that she had only ever had sex once, and that pretty much every other girl she knew was sexually active. It wouldn't matter, she was the one stupid enough to get knocked up. Suddenly a horrible realization comes to her mind, forget college, and getting out of this town, or her social standing, forget all of that other stuff, when her parents found out, and there was no way to hide it from them, she would be lucky to survive the experience.

The thought of her parents finding out brings up a fresh wave of panic in her. She feels like she can't breathe. Her mind is working a mile a minute as she envisions all of these nightmare scenarios of telling them. She tries to suck in more air, to try and calm herself down but it doesn't work. She begins to hyperventilate and she's starts to feel light headed. She can feel her heart pounding wildly in her chest and she covers her mouth with both hands to muffle a panicked scream, as her panic attack comes in full force.

She lays down on her side, pressed up against the cool outside of her tub as she curls up in on herself. "No, no, no, no." She whimpers through each breath. She needs to calm down and think this through, plan a course of action, but she can't. She can't calm down, and every second it gets worse and worse. The thoughts of what her parents will do to her when they find out she's pregnant are overwhelming. She squeezes her eyes shut as her vision begins to blur.

"…help." She manages to croak out, before she finally lets the darkness consume her and she loses consciousness.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

"Quinn." A hushed voice whispers.

Quinn just groans and ignores it, not ready to be awake yet, she was having the worst dream, and now that it was over she just wanted to rest.

"Quinn!" The voice whispers once again with more urgency, and she feel's herself being gently nudged.

"G'way." She groans.

"Quinn, Querida, you need to wake up, Britt is already packing your things, we're getting you out of here."

Quinn finally opens her eyes and looks up into the worried face of Santana. She slowly starts to sit up and Santana helps her. "What's going on?" She asks confused. "What are you doing here, why do I need to leave?"

"When you didn't show up for the morning workout B and I were a little concerned, we tried calling you but you didn't answer and when you didn't show up for school we were worried something bad had happened to you. So we came here to check on you and found you lying here on the floor." Santana's face hardens in anger. "We are getting you out of here and then we are taking you down to see B's dad, and you are going to tell him what happened to you. They don't get to hurt you again, ever."

Santana pulls a still dazed Quinn into her arms and holds her tightly. "I am so sorry Querida, I should have done something sooner, I should have gotten you out sooner, I am so so sorry. This won't happen again I promise."

"Wait, what? What time is it?" Quinn asks trying to get her brain to catch up. She missed school? What was happening?"

"It's a little after 12:30, now come on, B should be finished packing, but you'll want to help with that. We have to hurry though, we don't know how long your mom is going to be out."

Quinn tries to stand up but is very stiff and a little shaky so Santana has to assist her. "San, what are you talking about, why do I have to leave? I'm fine, everything is-" Quinn stops short, as last night comes rushing back to her, and it's a good thing that Santana is there because almost all of the strength in her legs left her and the other girl had to help her keep standing.

"Oh yeah, no, you're great, I can totally tell," Santana sneers. "I told you before, I wouldn't ever let you being hurt slide again, I wouldn't care how angry you got, or how much you begged me to leave it alone. You're not fine, people who are fine don't miss school like this. We fucking found you lying unconscious on the bathroom floor, you are about as far from fine as someone can get."

Santana leads her out of the bathroom and sits her down on her bed and kneels before her. She can see out of the corner of her eye, Brittany throwing clothes into a backpack. Santana takes her hands in her own and holds them gently while looking her in the eye firmly.

"We are getting you out of here, you are going to tell B's dad everything that these bastards have done to you, starting with whatever they did last night."

"San, no-"

"After that, we're going to talk to my mom to see what legal actions you can take."

"No, San my parents didn't do anythi-"

"Bullshit!" Brittany interrupts her, moving over and sitting down next to her. "Don't tell me they haven't done anything to you, I saw that bruise on your arm, and whatever they did last night that has you so scared that you would actually try to lie to us will never happen again. If you won't save yourself, we will."

"B's right Quinn, we are-"

"I'm pregnant." Quinn interrupts and both of her friend's eyes widen in shock, their mouths drop, trying to process what their friend has just told them. "That's why I didn't show up this morning… or go… go to… to school… and… I… I..." Quinn breaks down again, as the emotions and fears she had last night resurface in full force.

Both Brittany and Santana move, in an instant Santana moving up next to the girl on the edge of the bed pulling her in and holding her, still confused about what's going on but needing to do something. Brittany hugs Quinn from behind and rests her head against Quinn's back as the girl sobs. Brittany gently runs a hand up and down Quinn's arm.

"My life is over!" Quinn muffled wail comes Santana's shoulder.

"No, no, Querida, no, no, that's not true."

"Yes it is! What… what am I going to do!?"

Santana and Brittany look at each other stricken, when they came here to grab Quinn they expected that things wouldn't be okay, but this was a situation so completely different than they were prepared to deal with. They had come here expecting to save their friend, but how could they save her from something like this.

The girls continue to hold their friend until her tears run out. Neither of them want to make things harder on her but they do have some questions. As far as they knew Quinn was still a virgin, they hadn't realized she had gone that far with Finn.

Santana is the one who finally decides to break the silence. "Quinn, when did you… you know?" She inwardly cringes, under less extreme circumstances she would have just asked 'So when did you and Frankenteen get your freak on?' Or something along those subtle lines. But for now she needs to proceed cautiously, her friend is in trouble right now, and she doesn't want to make it harder on the girl.

Quinn doesn't answer, she just sits there in silence. The cat is pretty much out of the bag, but she is still holding on to the hope that nobody has to find out that she slept with Puck. It's one thing to get pregnant because you got careless with your boyfriend, it's something completely different when you let the school man-whore get you drunk enough to sleep with him. Her mind is in a whirl-wind of thoughts and emotions, as she tries to consider what to say and do. She doesn't want to lie to her friends but she honestly doesn't know how she can tell them the truth. That after a single bad day, she let herself be manipulated into spreading her legs for the first guy that came along. That she had drunkenly thought that fooling around with Puck was a good way to get back at Finn for cheating on her. That despite their broken up status now, she had cheated on her boyfriend with her best friend's boyfriend. The guilt and shame had been bad enough, but now she had to deal with a life altering reminder of what she had done.

Quinn's thoughts are interrupted by Brittany who gently shakes her shoulder. She looks over at her fellow blond, with a dead look in her eye.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to Quinn. It's a very personal question, but if you ever need to, you know that we are right here for you."

"Thanks B." Quinn says quietly. "Listen Brittany, I'm really sorry about-"

"Completely forgotten, seriously, that's no big deal and in the end you did the right thing, that's all that counts. You have bigger things to worry about than that."

"Still I want you to know that I'm sorry."

Brittany just nods her head and then leans forward and places a kiss on Quinn's forehead. "Like I said, completely forgiven, but what about you, what can we do for you?"

Quinn lets out a sigh and her shoulders sag, "I have no idea."

"Sorry to bring this up, but when are you going to tell Finn?" Santana asks her friend gently.

Quinn stiffens up. "I don't… I don't know, I really don't want to think about this right now. I know I need to but, I just can't deal with this right now. Can we… I don't know, is there glee club today?"

Santana and Brittany look at her strangely. "Yeah, but are you sure you want to go… I mean, you have a lot to think about, are you sure you want to go." Santana asks.

"I'm sure, I need a distraction. I don't feel like dealing with coach today, and I can't be here right now, tomorrow, I'll be responsible, today I just don't want to care."

"Sure Q." Brittany says soothingly while casting a worried glance at Santana.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

When the three girls arrived at the school Quinn couldn't help but smile. Her two friends had basically formed rank around her and were putting out such fierce, angry vibes that even people at the end of the hallway were rushing to get out of their way. It was completely sweet, but at this point unnecessary. Still it was nice to know that her friends were going to stick by her in this.

She reaches over and quickly squeezes Santana's hand and the girl just nods to her in confirmation. She then does the same to Brittany who looks to her and smiles sweetly before turning her attention back to the student body as if she's checking the crowd for snipers.

When they finally reach the choir room, they are early for glee and the only person in there is Rachel, who is by the piano doing vocal warm-ups.

_"Me, me, me, me, me, me, me."_

_ "Me, me, me, me, me ,me, me."_

_ "Mai, mai, mai, mai, mai, mai, mai, mai."_

_ "Mu, mu, mu, mu, mu, mu, mu, mu."_

_ "Me, me, me, me, me, me-"_

"How very like you Berry, me, me, me." Santana snarks, interrupting the girl.

"Oh!" Rachel squeaks, startled, before turning angrily towards the Latina. "I'll have you know that this is a tried and true vocal exercise that has worked very well for me for years now, and that I am no more selfish than anybody else in this club, thank you very much." She then turns dismissively from Santana, who actually eyes her with a little more respect than before, before smiling at Quinn.

"I am so glad that you decided to continue on with glee club. Mr. Schuester is done with his whole "Acafella's" thing and will be devoting his full time to glee club once more. All we need to do now is recruit the last three members of the club and then we'll be ready to compete, it is all very exciting."

Rachel finally turns her attention to Brittany. "Brittany, I've been working on this non-stop since the whole Taylor Swift medley fiasco thing and I wanted to get your thoughts on it."

Brittany turns to Quinn asking for her permission, not wanting to leave her friend if she needs her. "I'm good B, you can go help Berry with her thing."

Rachel eyes them curiously, wondering what's going on with Quinn, but doesn't says anything and it's basically driven from her mind when Brittany and her reach the piano and start to go over her music.

Santana and Quinn take a seat over in the corner and listen to the two other girls work for a while. When Santana is sure that it's safe she leans over and whispers to Quinn. "Q, I know you don't want to talk about it or even think about it right now, but this is huge. Why didn't you come to me sooner?"

"I just found out I was pregnant last night, San, there wasn't any time to tell you."

"No, not about that, I'm talking about… you know… sex." Santana stumbles out, still trying to be tactful for Quinn's sake. "I thought you wanted to wait, I know how important to you that was, plus with everything that the Jolly Green Giant pulled on you, I'm pretty shocked that you gave it up for him. I guess I just want to know why you didn't come to me, I mean I know it's personal, but we don't keep secrets from each other… or at least we didn't used to."

"San…I'm not exactly proud of what happened, it was a huge mistake and I have hated myself ever since, I was having a bad day, and it was a moment of weakness, if I could take it back I would. I was just hoping that if I didn't talk about it, just ignored it then I could pretend that it never happened." A tear falls from Quinn's eye. "I guess that's not an option anymore."

"That bad huh?" Santana jokes trying to lighten the mood a bit.

Quinn can't help but let out a laugh. "Yeah… yeah it was that bad."

"So when are you going to tell Finn that he's going to be a dad?"

Quinn had no idea what to do about Finn and was thankfully saved from answering when the choir room door opened and the rest of the club began to file in.

Finn makes his way over to Quinn smiling and takes the other seat next to her, he ignores the glare that Santana is sending him, he's pretty used to it by now, she has never been overly fond of him, although it does seem a little bit angrier than usual. He reaches over to take Quinn's hand and is shocked and a little hurt when she yanks it away from him, and places her hands in her lap, and avoids looking at him.

"Hey Quinn, what's-"

"You're in my seat." Finn is interrupted by Brittany who is glaring at him. He gazes at her, dumbfounded by what he could have possibly done to make her angry, Brittany was never angry with anyone.

"Hey what's going on, why are you all mad at me?"

"What's wrong Finnept, is that you are in B's seat, so move." Santana snaps at him.

"No way, what the hell is your problem?"

"Please go Finn." Quinn speaks up quietly, not looking at him. "You're causing a scene."

Finn looks around and notices the rest of the glee club is watching them curiously. "Fine, whatever." Finn says angrily as he grabs his stuff and moves down to an empty seat between Rachel and Kurt.

Brittany takes the seat next to Quinn and affectionately rubs her shoulder.

"What the fuck are you all looking at?" Santana sneers at the rest of the club, who were still watching the trio. "Are your lives so pathetic that you have to watch us, look away fools."

The rest of the club quickly turns away except for Rachel who watches on with concern for a few moments longer before finally tearing her gaze away from the trio when Mr. Schuester walks into the room, beaming.

"Alright guys, welcome to glee club. I'm glad to see all of you here because I have a couple of announcements. First of all, I would like to apologize, I abandoned you guys when you needed me and I left you hanging, I heard about what disaster hiring Dakota Stanley was and I apologize for not being here to watch out for you. But I heard you didn't need it and you guys handled things just fine. Especially you Quinn." He turns his gaze onto her, a look of pride on his face. "You stepped up and helped remind everyone that we're a team, so thank you. We can all learn from your example."

Quinn turns red before speaking up. "Mr. Schuester, about that I-"

"You should have been there!" Brittany interrupts quickly. "She totally put that guy in his place. It was awesome."

"I completely agree, Quinn saved the day," Rachel throws in and then looks Quinn in the eyes. "You really were a hero to this club that day." The rest of the glee club throws in their agreements after that.

Quinn is touched by both Brittany and Rachel jumping in for her and so all she does is nod to them in gratitude.

"I wish I could have seen it, you really stepped up Quinn, so thank you." Mr. Shcuester then turns his attention away from Quinn and back to the rest of the club.

"Now the second order of business. We need more people, so to that end-"

Quinn stops paying attention at this point and leans back in her chair, and stares at the ceiling. There are so many things to consider and now that she's here she realizes what a bad idea it was to show up today. She is in no condition to be singing and dancing and pretending that everything is okay. And now she feels guilty for treating Finn so badly. She just can't have him touching her right now, especially when she just doesn't know what to do about him. Does she tell him the truth, that she slept with his best friend and is now pregnant with his child, or could she lie to him, tell him it's his? And as always gnawing at the back of her mind, her parents, what does she do about them?

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Glee passes in a blur, there was some sort of drama going on with Tina getting a solo over Rachel, but Quinn honestly didn't care enough to pay it any attention. She had finally come to a decision about Finn and was determined to go through with it, no matter the cost.

"Santana, Brittany, I need to talk to Finn for a moment, can you guys wait up?"

"Sure Q."

"We'll be right here."

She nervously makes her way over to the boy, unable to look him in the eye. "We need to talk." She turns to Rachel who is right next to him. "Alone please."

Once Rachel leaves and the rest of the choir room is empty save for Santana and Brittany who are waiting at the door she finally turns and looks at the boy.

"What's going on Quinn, why are you so mad at me, whatever I did I'm sorry." The boy says sincerely.

"Finn, I…" it's on the tip of her tongue to tell him, to tell him that she's pregnant with his child. "I… I'm pre… No, no, I can't do this…. I'm sorry Finn."

He looks at her puzzled. "Quinn what's going on, what can't you do, please tell me." He asks her gently taking her hand in his own.

Quinn takes a deep breath and resolves herself to go through with this, pulling her hand away as she says. "I'm breaking up with you."

She can hear a gasp come from Brittany and Santana curse in the background. She had originally planned to tell him that the child was his, but how could she force someone into this. Finn made his mistakes but he didn't deserve this, he deserved his chance to get out of this town, to make something of his life, a chance that she no longer had. She wasn't _in_ love with him, but she did love him, and she did care about him and she had no right to trap him in this.

"What!? Why!? Quinn what's going on, why are you doing this, is it me, did I do something wrong!? Why are you breaking up with me!?" The boy sounds like he is near tears, and the confusion in his voice cuts her.

"I'm pregnant." She tells him, her voice barely above a whisper.

"What?" He gasps out breathless. "You… you're… pregnant?"

She nods her head.

"Is, is it mine, am I going to be a dad?" His voice cracks at the thought and he looks so scared right now that Quinn knew she made the right choice here.

"No, you're not the father, so I'm breaking up with you."

Finn's look of fear and anxiety quickly morphs into anger and he starts to shake with rage. "You cheated on me! What the hell is the matter with you!? How long has this been going on for, I mean how many guys have you been with?!"

"Finn I-" She tries to calm the yelling boy.

"Don't you think about anyone but yourself, did you ever even care about me at all!? Seriously, how could you do this to me-"

SLAP!

Finn holds a hand tentatively up to his face and gingerly touches the already forming pink hand print that is beginning to appear on his face. Quinn who had been feeling extremely guilty and remorseful up until this point was now only pissed. She had expected him to be angry, she had expected him to be hurt and to yell, but when he asked how she could do this to him, all of her pent up rage at his own actions and her situation came to bear.

"How could I do this to you?" She whispers harshly, her voice as cold as ice. "How could I do this to you!?" She yells. "What about you Finn, how many girls have you been with since we got together!?"

"I… I don't-" He stammers out.

"You… you… don't… don't, what Finn?" She mocks him cruelly. "Don't know what I'm talking about? Don't know what I mean? Or maybe you just don't know how many. How many girls have you been with, besides Berry I mean?"

The look of shock on his face causes her to sneer. "Oh you didn't think I knew about that did you, you thought you got away with it? Well tell me Finn, since that first day in the auditorium, how many times have you gone off with her or any other girl!?"

Quinn begins to shake with emotion. "How could I do this to you!? YOU CHEATED ON ME FIRST! YOU BROKE MY HEART, YOU LIED TO ME FIRST, AND WHEN I WAS EMOTIONALLY VULNERABLE, I WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO LET SOME LOSER FUCK ME BECAUSE ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS GET OVER YOUR BETRAYAL!"

Quinn takes a shuttering, deep, breath and Finn is looking at her, his eyes wide with fear and guilt. "How could I do this to you? You cheated on me first, I made one mistake and now my life is over, I'm going to lose everything, I will never get out of here and the entire school is going to talk about me behind my back, it doesn't matter what the circumstances were, or that it was one mistake that I have regretted and hated myself for from the moment it happened, that won't matter to anyone. They're going to call me a slut and a hypocrite and everything else they can think of. You and I both cheated on each other but I'm the one who gets to be the social pariah."

Quinn scoffs in disbelief, her voice cracking as she continues to speak. "But you, you get to skate away from this scot free, you don't have to face any consequences for your actions. And you, you'll have a whole line of girls all waiting to comfort the now single, but still popular, quarter back over his cheating bitch of an ex-girlfriend. My life is over but you still have yours, but yeah, no Finn, how could I do this to you?"

Quinn can't keep her emotions in check any longer and starts to cry. "Go to hell." She whispers before turning and leaving the room as quickly as her feet will carry her.

**S**

** A.N. So this chapter is very interesting to me and also very important to me because this chapter has the idea that sparked this story, which is, what if Quinn had made a different choice when she found out that she was pregnant, what if she had told Finn the truth right from the get go? The idea bounced around in my head for a while until it finally became this story. I'm sure it has been done before, but I haven't personally seen it and so I wanted to give the idea a try. Although if you do know of other stories let me know, I would be interested in seeing what they did. I hope you guys have enjoyed the story so far and the next chapter will be up on Friday.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Standard disclaimer, I do not own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

Santana and Brittany couldn't believe what they had just heard. Finn wasn't the father; it was such a shocking revelation to the both of them that it wasn't until Quinn started screaming at him that it broke them from their daze. And when Quinn rushed past them out of the room they were still too stunned to move, trying to process what they had just learned.

It's eerily silent for a few seconds after Quinn had left. Santana takes a quick glance at Finn who looks shaken, he's standing as still as a rock, until he finally manages to stumble over to a chair and collapses onto it, burying his head in his hands. Santana looks away when she feels Brittany tug on her sleeve and motions for them to go after Quinn.

Santana nods her head, but she has no idea what good it will do. This is a giant mess, with seemingly no easy solutions. Quinn is in trouble no matter what she does, but now instead of at least having Finn to help her, they have just found out that they have no idea who the father is and that scares Santana.

She had teased Quinn over the years about being a bit of a prude, but it was only teasing. Quinn had a very serious view on sex and had been adamant that it wouldn't happen till after she was married. Santana didn't agree with that personally, sex was fun, and as long as you were careful it was something to enjoy. But then again Quinn was also way more of a romantic than she was. But to find out that Quinn had done it with some random guy was worrying. Quinn wasn't that kind of person so she must have been in a bad way, and as soon as the thought enters her mind it hits her. When it happened, the day of the assembly, Quinn went off the radar all day that day, and when they had caught up to her she had been in bad shape.

Shit, no wonder she had been so sensitive that day and the days that followed. She had been dealing with this all on her own and Santana couldn't understand why, why didn't Quinn come to her or Brittany? If nothing else either one of them would have been there for her. Answered any questions or just listened. Hell from what she had just heard, they both would have been more than happy to kick some ass as well.

Both girls ran around the school, searching for their friend, when their phones buzz. They had both received the same message from Quinn.

**From: Quinn- I don't want to talk right now, I just want to be alone. If you still want to talk to me I'll see you guys tomorrow, if not I understand. I've fucked my life up badly enough, I don't want to hurt you either.**

"What are we going to do San?" Brittany asks.

"We're going to ignore her message and go be there for our friend, that's what we're going to do." Santana says with finality.

"But… she said she wanted to be alone, shouldn't we respect that?"

"She's been doing this "alone" for a while now and that doesn't seem to be working out so well. So let's go, we'll wait by her house for her to come home and then… fuck, I don't know, I just know that despite what she might want, she shouldn't be alone right now."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn leaned against her front door, bent over, gasping for breath. After fleeing from the choir room, and sending the quick text to Santana and Brittany, she had sprinted the entire way home. Her face was red, and sweat was dripping from her brow, as she desperately gasped for air. Her heart was thundering in her chest, said organ leaps into her throat as she jumps in fright when someone calls out to her.

"Impressive time Q, you almost beat us here."

Clutching her chest she looks over and sees Santana and Brittany waiting by Santana's car in front of her house. "What… what are… you doing here?" She gasps out, still trying to catch her breath.

"We're here for you Quinn; you shouldn't be alone right now." Brittany speaks up.

"Look… I appreciate it, but I need to be alone, I need to handle this on my own."

"And how has that been working out for you?" Santana questions her angrily. "The day Finn cheated on you, that's when all of this started and from that point till now you've been keeping everything to yourself. You haven't talked to me or Brittany or fucking anyone and now things are seriously going to hell for you. So seriously, how well has been doing this on your own been going for you? Let us help you, or barring that at least let us be here for you, even if it's so that you can just have someone standing next to you.

"Fuck, I don't know what either Britts or myself can do, but we can at least be here, this lone wolf shit that you've been pulling hasn't been working for you, so for fucks sake let us in."

"I… I…" Quinn stammers.

"I don't know what we can do either, if anything, but please Quinn, Santana is right, let us in, you aren't alone, not if you don't want to be." Brittany pleads.

Quinn stares at her two friends and a small smile graces her face, because they are right. They may not be able to do much, but having them here beside her is better than going it alone. She's been trying so hard to handle things alone and it's just not possible anymore.

"Okay." She whispers and both of her friends are by her side in an instant.

"What can we do for you Q?" Santana asks her sincerely.

"Anything you need, anything at all." Brittany confirms.

Quinn bites her lip nervously. "I don't really want to be home tonight. I keep thinking about my parents, how… well how they're going to react to the news…" Quinn hesitates as dark looks cross Brittany and Santana's faces.

"I know it's a school night, but do you think either of your parents would care if I spent the night… just for tonight, while I wrap my head around things?"

"Less people at my place, I'll give my mom a call." Santana says as she quickly pulls out her phone.

"San, please don't… don't tell her anything, okay?" Quinn asks.

"Sure."

While Santana is on the phone calling her mother Brittany leans in and hugs Quinn. "Everything's going to be okay Quinn, you'll see."

Quinn smiles at Brittany's optimism. "I hope so B."

"My mom is cool with it; I just told her it was a study session for a math test tomorrow." Santana says as she hangs up her phone. So let's grab your stuff and get going."

"Thanks Santana."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn was super grateful for Santana letting her stay the night last night. It was nice to not have to worry, to just sit around and have fun with her friends. Maribel, Santana's mother, made them a seven layer dip, with home-made guacamole. Was it Sue Sylvester approved, no, did it mean that they had to get up an extra 45 minutes early to burn it off, yes. Did they care, not one bit. It had been delicious and had barely lasted half an hour.

Quinn lets out a small giggle at the thought of the looks on everybody's faces if they knew that the three head cheerios were actually quite the little pigs at times. The most important thing about last night for Quinn however is that for the first time since she slept with Puck, she felt somewhat normal. It was just her and her two best friends just being goofy teenagers. And while she still had a lot of things to worry about and decisions to make, she had been given a brief respite and was able to at least partially gather her mind.

Unfortunately any residual good feelings Quinn was having from the sleep over, completely flew out the window, when she saw Puck making his way towards her. Quinn quickly shuts her locker and tries to get away from the boy, but he catches up to her.

"Sup, MILF."

"Leave me alone."

"Hey now," He says soothingly as he pulls her to a secluded part of the hallway. "I heard something interesting from my boy Finn."

She just glares at him. "Are you going somewhere with this, or are you just trying to piss me off?" She wants absolutely nothing to do with him, and wishes he would just hurry up and leave.

"Is it true?" He asks.

"Is what true?"

"Are you pregnant?"

"Yes, now go away and leave me alone." Quinn turns to try and leave, but is stopped by Puck grabbing her arm.

"Wait, hold on a second, is it mine?"

"No." She tells him obstinately, not wanting him anywhere near her, or the child.

"Oh really, cause you were a virgin when we did it, you get it on with a bunch of other guys since then?" He taunts her.

Quinn sees red and starts to shake with rage and she wants to do nothing more than punch that stupid, smug, grin off of his face. Quinn has to consciously force herself to count to ten to calm down a bit. She truly hates Puck right now, and there is literally nobody else in this school that she wouldn't prefer to be the father over him, not even that creepy Ben-Israel kid… okay maybe not him, but its close. Still getting angry at him and causing a scene in the middle of a crowded hallway will do her no good.

"Fine, biologically speaking, the child is yours, whatever, what does it matter to you?" She growls at him.

"Look, my dad ran out on me and my family, but I don't roll like that. I'll take care of you and the baby." He tells her sincerely.

However because of who just said that to her she can't help the harsh laugh that comes out of her. "You!? Seriously? You, and how do you plan on doing that hmm? Aren't you the guy that was fired from Burger Joint for peeing in the fry machine?"

"Hey, I've got my pool cleaning business and I've got plans, I'm no dead beat." Puck says, offended by her attitude.

"Alright…" Quinn says appraisingly.

"You want to be a father, play house? Be my baby daddy?" Quinn asks him enticingly.

"Well yeah." Puck answers truthfully, but he has the distinct feeling he has just walked into a trap.

"So what do you think, what did we make, a boy or a girl?" Quinn steps closer into Puck's personal space seductively, and runs a finger up and down his arm.

"Um…I…" Puck's voice cracks, nobody could pull off seductress like Quinn could, and Puck was getting the feeling that he was about to get lucky. "Ahem, I mean, I don't know, what do you think babe?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe it's a boy, a…" Quinn giggles. "A little Noah Jr. Would you like that, to have a son, a little Noah Jr."

Puck rubs the back of his head, a little embarrassed, because yeah he would like that. "Yeah, that would be pretty cool."

"And would you teach him everything you know?"

Puck nods his head, a smirk on his face, as he places a hand around Quinn waist.

"You would teach him how to be a badass, just like his daddy?"

"Of course, no kid of mine is going to be some geek." Puck scoffs, already picturing a mini version of him standing next to him, torn jeans and a wife beater, with a little Mohawk. His kid was going to rock.

"Of course not, not the Puckasaurous' child, not a chance." Quinn agrees. "And when he gets old enough, are you going to teach him everything about women, about how to please them, every tip and trick that you know?"

"Oh yeah," Puck laughs. "That kids going to get so much tail; he won't know what to do with it all."

"Yeah," Quinn smirks and suddenly her entire demeanor changes, she is no longer smiling and being flirtatious but is looking at Puck like he is something disgusting she stepped in. "Will one of the things that you are going to teach him be how to get a girl drunk enough to sleep with him? Are you going to teach him how to emotionally manipulate a girl into doing something that she will regret for the rest of her life?"

Puck's eyes widen in shock, because this is a complete turn-around from where he thought this was going. "Wait, what are you talking about?" He asks flustered as he and Quinn step apart from each other.

"Oh don't be modest Puck, go ahead and tell me how you are going to teach your son that the only value that a woman has is how well she sexually pleases a man. That it's okay to take an emotionally vulnerable girl and get her drunk and then fuck her."

"Now wait a sec-"

"Oh did I say something wrong? I thought you wanted your son to be a sexual predator, oh wait, I'm sorry, you prefer the term badass. I thought you wanted him to be a "badass" just like you, someone who has perfected that consent- slash- sexual assault line perfectly. Because hey, it doesn't matter how you impair a girl's ability to consent as long as she doesn't say no, right."

"Wait I didn't-"

"And then after you've helped your son perfect his ability to get into a girl's pants, are you going to teach him the best way to get the girl out of his room too?" Quinn mockingly laughs, "My personal favorite is just booting her out and letting her drunkenly stumble home, because hey who cares it's not his problem anymore, he got what he wanted. And if something were to happen to her on the way home, again who cares, because again, it's not his problem, he got what he wanted. And women aren't really worth anything other than what they can do for you in bed anyway."

"Now wait a second, I don't think that!"

"Really!?" Quinn gasps in fake surprise. "Because that's how you treat them. But sure Puck, I believe you. You have nothing but the upmost respect for women." Quinn says, once again mocking the boy.

"Hey I know, let's try out this scenario instead," Quinn says with fake enthusiasm. "Let's say that instead of a son, you have a daughter, you have a little girl. And she thinks that the sun rises and sets with you. You are her hero and when she grows up she wants to marry someone just like you, I mean she just absolutely loves you."

Quinn's eyes harden as she goes in for the kill. "Now let's say that one day, when she's older, she gets her heart broken and some guy sees how vulnerable she is and he comes up to her, and not caring one bit about her or how she's feeling, he has his way with her, and she isn't ready for taking such a step. She's not making good decisions, and the guy preys on that, he says all of the right things to make her feel awful about herself, and he does it, he swipes that V card and she just becomes another notch in a long list of notches on that boys bedpost.

"And then he kicks her out, and she feels ashamed and disgusted and confused, and so she stumbles home to you, crying, and she tells you what happened. Are you going to take her aside and tell her well that's just how some guys are, that some men are," Quinn pauses here, relishing the look of shock and hurt on Pucks face and she decides to twist the knife a bit, throwing his words back in his face. "Sex sharks. That's what you call guys like that right, sex sharks? I hope I'm using the term correctly."

Quinn feels a vindictive pleasure when she sees Puck's eyes are starting to look a little watery, and that his lip is slightly quivering. "Are you going to explain to her that some guys are sex sharks and that they need to feed, and that if you don't let them feed they will go hunting, that she was just a victim of his efforts to meet a basic need, and that she just needs to get over it. That as a woman all she is good for is lying on her back and spreading her legs… Well I guess on the plus side she can take comfort in the fact that she'll have just gotten her wish, she will have met a guy who was just like her father."

Quinn sneers at Puck, "Let's get some things straight between you and I. I hate you, I despise you, for what you did, but I can't blame you completely for this. I have to take some responsibility as well. I knew exactly what kind of guy you were when I went with you. And I was the one who made the mistake of trusting you to, for once in your entire life, be a decent human being. I foolishly thought for one minute that you were going to be a good person and not take advantage of someone else. I mistakenly believed that you were actually capable of caring about someone other than yourself, and now I'm paying the price for that.

"The fact that you are biologically this child's father is an outside influence that I have no control over. But I want you to know that I consider the fact that the baby will share your DNA as a genetic defect, it isn't the child's fault and it can be overcome, it's just a fact of life that I can't control. But what I can control, and what I do have a say over, is how involved you will be with this kid, and I'll tell you right now, whether I keep it or not, I would die before I let you anywhere near them. You are a parasite Puck, and you only know how to care about yourself, and I won't let you poison this kid's life." Quinn tells him harshly, she stops speaking when a group of freshman cheerios walk by, looking at him and giggling between themselves. When they pass, Quinn sneers at Puck.

"Hey look…" Quinn pauses for dramatic effect, "fresh meat, happy hunting sex shark." And with that Quinn shoulders past a shaken Puck, not even sparing him a second glance.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

The rest of the week passed tensely. Quinn refused to say who the father was, no matter how hard Santana or Brittany pushed. Her final word on the matter was that it only happened once and it was never going to happen again. Yes he knew about the baby, but she didn't want him involved and he wasn't the kind of guy you could rely on anyway and that she and the baby would both be better off without him. She didn't want to talk about it and she had more important things to worry about. As frustrating as it was, both Santana and Brittany dropped it for the moment. They had a hard enough time lately getting Quinn to open up; there was no point in forcing the issue and possibly causing her to close up again.

Things in glee club were tense as well. Nobody knew the whole story but everyone could feel the tension between Quinn and Finn. They sat as far from each other as possible and wouldn't talk to each other under any circumstance. Well Quinn wouldn't talk to Finn or even look at him, whereas Finn would stare a Quinn with a pensive look on his face, that fell somewhere between guilt and anger. But he would never actually speak to her or even try to speak with her either.

About the only good thing to happen that week in glee club was Kurt joining the football team. It was definitely an experience to behold. At first Santana had scoffed at the idea, when you thought about football, Kurt Hummel was the last person that came to mind. However he had proven to everyone that he had what it took to get the job done, scoring the winning field goal, and securing the only victory of the football team this year. Plus the entire football team dancing to Beyoncé's "_All the Single Ladies"_ had been a sight to behold.

They were now sitting in the choir room waiting for Mr. Schuester who was unusually late even for him. The club was quietly talking amongst themselves when she notices Rachel hesitantly make her way over.

The girl bites her lip nervously and slightly fidgets with her hands in front of her. "Um, Quinn? May… may I speak to you in private for a moment?"

"What do you want Berry?" Quinn asks briskly.

"It's… it's about…" Rachel doesn't finish her sentence but her eyes darting to Quinn's stomach are more than enough to let the three cheerio's know what she wants to talk about.

Quinn's eyes flash angrily and she stands up immediately, grabbing Rachel by the arm and dragging her from the choir room and out into the hall. Santana and Brittany go to follow but Quinn just shakes her head at them, motioning them to stay put. Santana moves to argue but is stopped by Brittany who leans in and tells her to let Quinn handle this.

"We can step in later if we need to."

The rest of the club watches with puzzlement and concern as the two girls leave the room.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn was terrified as she dragged Rachel from the room. Her situation was precarious enough as it was, and this girl could possible make things much worse. She had to find out what the tiny brunette knew and what she wanted. So she drags Rachel to a nearby abandoned classroom and slams the door behind them, and then locks it.

"What do you want?" She snarls at the girl, her eyes flashing with rage.

Rachel squeaks and takes a step back. "I… I overheard what you said to F… Finn the other day." She nervously stammers.

Quinn's rage is replaced by fear as her eyes widen. "What do you want? Please, you can't say anything, please!" She begs the girl. This was it, this was the moment where Rachel Berry got her back for every mean thing she had ever done to her. All of the cruel MySpace posts, the names, the slushies. It was payback time and there was nothing Quinn could do to stop it.

"I just…" Rachel takes a second to gather her courage. "I just wanted to say that if you need anything… please feel free to ask. I know we aren't friends, but you are going to be going through a very rough time soon and you'll need friends and… well… since we're both member of the glee club, I just thought that… well… if you need anything, I would like to help. And, and I promise… I won't tell a soul." Rachel says sincerely.

Quinn is stunned. She can't believe what she is hearing, if their situations were reversed, Quinn is ashamed to admit that she would have been horrible to the girl. She had been horrible to her, and yet here Rachel was, offering her kindness and sympathy and she just couldn't understand it.

A part of her wanted to just tear into the girl. Throw her kindness right back in her face and try her very best to make this girl feel even a fraction of how awful she felt. She was not so bad off that she needed kindness or sympathy from the likes of Rachel Berry. This girl had been a part of the problem in the first place, how dare she come up and act all friendly and compassionate.

But another, larger part of Quinn pushed her pride aside and just marveled at the girl before her. Here was a girl who had more reasons than most to enjoy the situation that Quinn had found herself in. Yet here she was, offering to help her and Quinn decided to just let go. To let go of her anger and her hatred of the girl. Her and Finn were over, Rachel had never done anything to her to cause this kind of hatred, and the girl was right. She was going through a hard time right now and things were only going to get worse, and she was going to need all of the help she could get.

Quinn sighs and rubs her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, before looking at the other girl who is watching her anxiously for her reaction. "Thank you Rachel."

The other girl's eyes widen in shock, she had obviously not been expecting a good reaction from the blond. _'Yet she still tried anyway.'_ Quinn thinks a smile on her face. "There isn't anything you can do, but I appreciate the offer. Just please don't tell anyone."

"Of course not Quinn, I would never do that… and I'm sorry and I hope that maybe we can be friends." The girl looks at her hopefully.

"Let's work on not being enemies first." Quinn says kindly, not wanting to hurt the girl's feelings, but also wanting to be honest.

Rachel looks a little disappointed but agrees. "Okay, I guess that works too." She then holds out her hand. "Not enemies?"

Quinn laughs and shakes the girl's hand. "Not enemies." She agrees.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

When Quinn and Rachel return every eye is on them as they retake their seats. Rachel next to Finn and Quinn between Santana and Brittany.

"Everything okay with you and Berry?" Santana asks her.

"Yeah, everything's good." A small smile playing on Quinn's lips.

Santana just arches her brow and looks at her weirdly before shaking her head and leaning back in her chair, getting more impatient by the second, waiting for Mr. Schuester to finally show up.

Brittany however is beaming at her, a few seconds pass and every time Quinn glances at her friend, she is still looking at her and smiling.

Finally Quinn can't hold it in anymore. "What?" She asks laughing.

"You and Rachel are friends now." Brittany says quietly.

"No we aren't."

"Yes you are." Brittany sing-song's.

"No, but I am done with fighting with her." Quinn concedes to the girl.

"Oh God." Santana groans.

Just then Mr. Schuester comes bounding into the room, "Alright guys, great news!" He claps his hands together as his smile grows.

"You were the beauty salon's millionth customer and now you get free perms for life?" Santana guesses.

"Uh… no…. anyway" Mr. Schuester says awkwardly, unsure how to take that comment and deciding he was better off ignoring it. "Thanks in part to Kurt's efforts in bridging the gap between football and glee club," Here the club cheers for the blushing boy as he waves at them all. "We now have three new members for our glee club, come on in guys."

Everyone is surprised, but pleased at the news. The first person to enter the room is Matt Rutherford, running back if Quinn recalls correctly. He's just on the cusp of being popular, but he's not quite there yet. He's a nice enough guy though and so he gets along pretty well with everyone. Quinn had no idea that he would be into something like glee club, but then again they don't exactly run with the same exact crowd. His girlfriend is… Quinn rack's her brain for the girls name… Allison Miller, that's who it is, she's the captain of the girls soccer team.

The next person to enter is Mike Chang. Wide receiver and like Matt, not quite one of the popular kids, but not on the bottom of the totem pole by any stretch of the imagination. Again, another nice guy, he's also pretty quiet and usually keeps to himself, but he does make the occasional appearance at parties. He doesn't have a girlfriend to Quinn's recollection, although she hasn't exactly kept up on the local school gossip lately.

The final person to enter the room causes Quinn to stiffen. There is no way in hell that he would join glee club, it's just not possible. There is absolutely no way in hell that Noah Puckerman would ever be caught dead in glee club. Quinn focuses hard on trying to stay calm, but it's hard especially when he catches her eye as he gazes at her dolefully. _'Oh God, no way, there is no possible way that he is actually going to join!'_ Quinn thinks in a panic.

Santana is surprised to see three members of the football team enter the choir room. Okay, well she's surprised to see Puck there. She doesn't know Matt or Mike well enough to say if it's weird for them to be here, well, no more weird than it is for any of them to be there. She may enjoy it but Santana would be the first to say that this club was still pretty lame. Still everyone is entitled to their guilty pleasures. Puck being here is weird though, by any standard you set, however.

Santana turns to make a comment to Quinn and stops short when she sees the tension in her friend's body. She's gone into her super ice queen mode, which is only reserved for especially difficult situations or when you have pissed her off to the point of no return, her face is blank, there is a slight, cruel, curl on her lip and her eyes are set to an icy glare. But why the hell would those three being in glee club make her friend so upset, and then it hits her like a ton of bricks, one of those three is the father, and Santana is pretty sure it's not Matt or Mike.

She leans back and catches Brittany's eye, who looks at her in confusion. Santana quietly motions to Quinn and then down to Puck and the back to Quinn. Brittany looks puzzled for a moment, but then her eyes widen as it slowly dawns on her. She silently mouths, 'No way.'

Both Santana and Brittany completely ignore Mr. Schuester as he introduces the new members of the club. Both of their gazes are fixed on Quinn whose glare never wavers from Puck. They haven't confirmed it, but both of them are pretty sure that they now know who the father is. But it's unbelievable, Quinn hates Puck, she can't stand him and Santana can't think of a single scenario where Quinn would be willing to sleep with the boy. It's just not possible.

**s**

** So there you have it, finally, FINALLY, Santana and Brittany know who the father is. Next up will begin the fallout of this discovery. Thank you for reading and the next chapter will be up on Friday.**


	11. Chapter 11

**A.N. Earlier today I posted chapter 10 and I received a review that said, among other things, that my story was retarded and that I should stop writing, if you wish to read the review, I didn't delete it and it should be up with the other reviews whenever, whatever time it takes to get through the system finishes. Here, however, is my response to this review.**

** Standard disclaimer, I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

**Chapter 11**

**s**

Quinn couldn't imagine how this day could get any worse. Puck, fucking Puck, had joined the glee club. This club was going to be her one respite from him, the one area in the entire school where she could safely assume he would not be. Yet there he was, he just showed up, and Quinn just wanted to scream. As soon a glee let out she left the room as quickly as she could, making sure that he didn't have a chance to talk to her.

Quinn sent up a short prayer of gratitude that it was Friday and that the week was finally over. She was going to spend the weekend over at Brittany's. She didn't want to go home until she had a plan of some sort on how to handle her parents. She didn't bother calling or even sending a text asking permission to stay at her friends place, if either of her parents were actually sober enough to think of her they would have contacted her already. That was one plus side to her situation, she never really had to get parental permission to do anything, just wait until they were too wasted to care.

No matter how much she wanted to avoid it, she had to tell her parents and soon. She wouldn't be able to hide it much longer and she was already starting to show. Not enough to draw any attention yet, but definitely enough for her to notice. And after she told her parents, and assuming she survived the encounter she had to figure out what she was going to do about school. She needed to start prepping and getting things set up for when she finally took that fall from the top. Still she couldn't worry about that now, _'One thing at a time.'_ She tells herself.

First she needs to worry about her parents, then she can move on from there. As she is contemplating her next action she is brought out of her thoughts as Brittany and Santana walk up to her. They both have such a somber and serious expression on their faces that Quinn can't help but make a joke. "Jeez you two, who died?"

When they just continue to stare at her, lost in thought, it kind of freaks her out.

"Oh my God, no one died did they?" Quinn asks in alarm.

"What, oh no…" Brittany trails off.

"Q, Querida, is…" Santana also trails off awkwardly.

A few seconds pass as both Brittany and Santana continue to stare at her in silence, slightly fidgeting as they struggle to say whatever it is they are having trouble saying. "You guys, you're really starting to freak me out, what's wrong?"

Finally Brittany breaks the silence. "Quinn, who's the father?"

Quinn can't help but roll her eyes in frustration. "This again, look I know you guys are curious, but it doesn't matter who the father is, he's not going to have anything to do with the baby and it's better that way. Now please, just drop it, if it helps-"

"Is it Puck?" Santana asks, her eyes hard as she interrupts her best friend.

Quinn freezes, there is no way that they could know that, not unless… "He told you?" Quinn whispers.

"No, but you should have." Santana replies.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. Quinn sat on the edge of Brittany's bed, head down and her hands in her lap as she waited for someone to break the silence, nobody had spoken since they had left the school. Brittany sat at her desk facing the other blond at a loss for words on what to say, but trying to think of something. Santana was by a dresser near the door, glaring at nothing as she silently fumed.

Finally it was Santana who broke the silence. "So do you fuck all of your friend's boyfriends or is it just mine?" The Latina snarls.

"Santana!" Brittany yells as she glances at Quinn who looks like she's just been slapped.

"San… I…" Quinn starts to cry. "I'm really sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry, well then I guess that just makes everything okay then." Santana sneers.

"Please San… I didn't-"

"Didn't what Quinn, betray me, I know I played it off cool, but damn it I didn't think that one of those ho's that Puck was getting with would be my best friend!"

Quinn buries her face in her hands and begins to sob, uncontrollably.

"Santana! What the hell!?" Brittany yells. "What is the matter with you!?"

"What's the matter with me is that I thought I could trust my friend not to betray me, to have enough respect for me to not sleep with my boyfriend!"

"He's not your boyfriend anymore! And besides you and I got together all of the time when you and he dated, how is that different?" Brittany asks seething.

"It's different because I was in love with you, and because I was confused about my feelings, it's different because Quinn who is supposed to be my friend and someone that I thought I could trust, went around behind my back and slept with my boyfriend and then tried to keep it a big secret! She has absolutely no respect for me, or my feelings, or what I was going through, how the hell am I supposed to trust her again!?"

Santana was red with rage and she stands before Quinn. "You didn't even have the decency to tell me to my face, I had to fucking work it out for myself, you kept it a secret and then you tried to pull the wool over my eyes, you're no better than Finn. You just snuck around and then tried to hide it and pretend that everything was okay, that you didn't do anything wrong!"

"Santana please," Quinn begs, "Please, I am so, so, sorry, I… I didn't-"

"No you're not sorry, you're just sorry that you got caught, that you didn't get away with it."

"Please San, let me explain-"

"Explain what exactly!? What could there possibly be for you to explain, you went behind my back and-"

"Santana, let her talk!" Brittany growls, stepping squarely into Santana's space, placing herself between Quinn and the angry girl.

Santana's nostrils flare and it looks like she is about to lay into Brittany as well, Quinn knew that her friend had a temper, but she had hoped that Santana would take the news a little better. But the thing was, Santana was right she did betray her. It hurt Santana that she was never enough for Puck, that he slept around and made no secret of it. It had been humiliating for the girl to know that anytime she talked to another girl there was a chance that she had just been with Puck. Quinn was supposed to be her friend, and she had betrayed that friendship.

"Fine," Santana says, her voice full of steel.

Brittany matches Santana glare for glare, before turning to face Quinn her features softening to a more neutral if not sympathetic expression. She kneels down before her fellow blond who is still crying and takes her hands. "Sweetie, you need to talk, tell us what happened."

Quinn can't stop crying, she is pretty sure that she had just destroyed her friendship with Santana because of her mistakes, she just wanted to crawl into a whole and die, but she owed Santana an explanation. She owed it to her friend to tell her the truth, that because of one bad day she betrayed her friend and ruined her own life. If Santana was going to hate her, she deserved to know just how weak and pathetic she truly was.

"It… it all started with… with the asse- sembly."

And with that the dam burst open. She talked more than she ever had or thought she ever would about what happened. She talked about finding Finn and Rachel together and how much it hurt. She talked about how she had run into Puck and how he had been so nice and sweet to her. How she foolishly, stupidly, went home with him. How he gave her a drink, and then another, and then another, until she was so drunk she didn't know which way was up, all the while telling her everything she needed to hear. How pretty she was, how wonderful she was, telling her everything that she wanted to hear because she didn't believe it herself.

She talked about how they kissed; she confessed that she let Puck go farther with her than anyone else ever had, how she, in her drunken haze had thought that it was the perfect way to get back at Finn. She told them how at first she had tried to stop it when Puck wanted to go all the way, how she told him no, but how she ultimately gave in, because she didn't want to be hurt like she had been again. That she, in that moment of weakness, had thought that maybe Puck had been right, that the only reason she was losing Finn was because she wasn't doing _that_ with him. She tells them how she had asked Puck about protection, and how he had lied to her, and how painful and humiliating the next few minutes were. How degraded and disgusting she felt as Puck had sex with her.

She tells them how after he was done, just minutes later, how he had kicked her out of his house and she had to drunkenly stumble home, and how even weeks after it had happened that she hasn't felt clean since. That she can still feel his hands all over her body. She tells them, that she can't really explain why she tried to hide it from them only that she had to. She just couldn't bear the thought that they would look at her differently, that there are still times that she can't even stand to look at herself in the mirror. How she had lied to them because she had wanted to try and regain and maintain at least some form of normalcy after it had happened.

Her entire confession was said through her continued sobs and a torrent of tears. She felt so guilty, so worthless and disgusting. Her life was over and she had hurt, lied to, and betrayed the only people who had ever stood by her, no matter what. She could feel Brittany's arms around her, but it felt distant, ethereal, like it was more along the lines of the shadow of the memory of being touched. She can't even look at her friends right now and everything she is feeling, every single doubt and insecurity, every iota of guilt and self-loathing is brought crashing down on her, confirming to her, her opinion of herself when she hears the door slam. She looks up and sees that Santana is gone, that she has lost her best friend.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

"Sup' girl, I knew you couldn't-" was about as far into his pickup line as Puck got before he was doubled over in blinding pain, holding his crotch and fighting down the nausea. He collapsed to his knees and fell over as tears welled in his eyes.

When the doorbell had rung and he had answered the door he had been surprised, but pleased to see Santana there. After the emotional beat down that Quinn had given him he had been really down in the dumps. Seeing Santana there had lifted his spirits, because it could only mean one thing, he was about to have sex. The girl had broken up with him a while ago, stating something about financial security as the reason, but he knew she would be back. No one could resist the Puckasaurus' charms and he was in the process of telling her so.

It was an incredibly rude and painful awakening when he hadn't even finished his sentence, when Santana had taken all of her cheerleading skills and prowess and had delivered an upward kick of epic proportions right to where he lived.

Puck had been is some fights in his day, broken a few bones, and had even been hit in this area before, but all of that paled in comparison to the pain he was feeling right now. "What the hell!?" He screams and sobs at the girl, while trying to suck in the breath to speak. "What the fuck is your problem!?"

"My problem!? My problem!?" She screams at him, while making a move to stomp down on him and continue her assault. Luckily for him he manages to roll out of the way and stagger to his feet as he stumbles back into his house and away from the irate girl in front of him, who was advancing menacingly.

"My problem is you fucking raped my friend! That's my problem!" She then charges at him taking a swing at him.

Puck tumbles over the couch to avoid the strike. "What the hell are you talking about!?" He screams. He quickly staggers into the kitchen as Santana chases after him, her eyes wide with a madness he hadn't thought the girl possessed, as he puts the kitchen table between them.

"What I'm talking about," Santana snarls as she grabs nearby stool and flings it at him, Puck quickly ducking out of the way, "is Quinn! You raped her and you fucking thought you were going to get away with it!" At this she grabs the table and with a strength that belied her small size she flips it out of the way. Puck as quickly as he can, moves behind the island counter in the kitchen.

"What the hell are you talking about!? I didn't rape her, you crazy bitch, now get out of here before I call the cops!" For the first time in his life Puck was actually scared for his life. He knew Santana had a temper, hell he had laughed about it before, and had even teased her about it. He had no idea that she was capable of this kind of rage though.

"Good, fucking call them! B's dad is the sheriff, I can't wait to tell him how you raped someone he cares about and got her pregnant! I may go away for a little bit for beating the shit out of you but I'm going to have my mom push for the FUCKING DEATH PENALTY for you!"

Santana lunges across the island and claws at Puck, and he quickly gets out of the way and moves around the island when Santana gives chase, until they end up on the opposite side of the island they had started out on.

"What the hell has gotten into you!? I didn't rape her! I didn't hold her down or force her; she could have left at any time!"

"You got her drunk!" Santana screeches.

"So! You and I did it all of the time when we were smashed, how was that any different!?"

"The difference, asshole, is that I went with you knowing we were going to fuck, I was under no illusions about what was going to happen. I had an itch that needed to be scratched and you were convenient! Quinn had no idea what was going on, you just kept feeding her booze until she couldn't think straight and then you pushed yourself on her!"

"She didn't say no, I didn't force her to stay!" Puck yells, trying to defend himself. "She must have want-"

"You finish that sentence and I'll kill you, I swear to God above that you will not live to see another day." Santana's voice is as cold as ice. "You impaired her ability to choose, you manipulated her, and then you got her so shit faced drunk she couldn't think clearly. I know Quinn; she would have never agreed to sleep with you unless she was seriously messed up in the head."

"She… she didn't, she could have-"

"No she couldn't have, you may as well have slipped her a roofy, you took away her ability to think clearly, to make an informed decision and then you raped her. Quinn wasn't in her right mind, she was drunk, and you didn't care, you just stuck your tiny prick in anyway, you didn't give a single damn about anything other than yourself. I knew you were capable of some pretty stupid shit, that you weren't exactly the poster boy for good behavior, but I never, not once, even in my worst nightmares ever thought you were capable of something like this. And then you just kicked her out onto the street, where anything could have happened to her. She could have been abducted, or killed, or raped again-"

"Stop saying that!" Puck screams. "I didn't rape her… she never, she could have said no."

"Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?" Santana sneers. "How many other girls have you done this to? How many times have you gotten a girl drunk and then raped her? Because make no mistake, that's what it was. How many other girls have you cast out on to the street, or was Quinn a special case?"

Puck just stares into space. It was just some harmless fun, it was sex, and he never forced anyone. He never held anyone down, anytime a girl wanted to leave he let them. The alcohol was just to help loosen their inhibitions. He would never… sex was supposed to be fun, to feel good. He would never want a girl, or anyone to go through something like… that.

"It's not… I didn't…" He had thought that Quinn's rant at him earlier had just been hormones, that she was just pissed that she was knocked up. He hadn't taken it too seriously, but right now he was truly scared. He didn't know what to think or feel right now, especially with Santana here calling him a rapist. He wasn't, was he? No, he never forced anyone… he didn't. So then why was this affecting him so badly, why did the words that his ex was screaming at him hurt even more than the physical attack.

Tears began to well in his eyes and his voice cracks as he tries to speak. "Santana… I didn't… it… it wasn't, I could never-"

"Yes you did." Santana interrupts him. "You did though… You… will never hurt Quinn again; you will stay as far away from her and the baby as possible, in fact, I plan to make sure of it. Get your shit in order because after-"

Santana's threat was interrupted by her phone ringing. She growls in frustration and ignores it, intent on finishing what she came here to do. However her phone doesn't stop ringing and so she grabs it to tell who ever the asshole is that's calling her to back the fuck off. Puck is getting handled today and she doesn't have any time for distractions.

"Whatever you want, I don't fucking ca-"

"Shut up Santana." Santana is brought up short, when she realizes it's Brittany and she can literally feel the rage and the venom in her voice.

"B?"

"How… how could you do that?" Brittany isn't yelling, she is talking in a cool voice that belies just how angry the blond is.

"What are you talking about, what did I do?" Santana asks really confused.

"How could you," Brittany pauses and takes a deep, steadying breath. "How could you abandon Quinn like that? You just heard what Quinn went through, and you…" A growl comes over the line. "And you abandoned her, after hearing what she went through, how she was raped, you can't seriously still be mad at her, you can't still fucking blame her!" Brittany screams at her.

Santana's eyes widen in shock and she feels like she has just been punched in the gut. "Of… of course I don't blame her, how could-"

"If that's true then get back here now, Quinn's inconsolable right now, she thinks you hate her, that she's lost you." Brittany's voice is still cold.

"Yeah… no, of course… I… I'll be right there." Santana hangs up her phone and glances over to see Puck still staring at her, with a look of fear on his face and can feel her rage start to bubble up once again. "This, this isn't over."

She then turns and storms out of the house, intent on getting back to Brittany's house and to Quinn as quickly as she can.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

When she reaches Brittany's house she quickly goes inside and up to Brittany's room. She can hear the muffled sobs of her best friend through the door and it's like a knife to the heart. Quinn, her Quinn, her best friend had gone through a horrible experience and had been trying so hard to manage it on her own and Santana had just made it that much worse.

When she had heard the whole story, any anger or resentment of Quinn had disappeared immediately. Her friend hadn't betrayed her, but she had been hurt in an unforgiveable way. She felt guilty and angry at herself for not seeing it sooner, that she hadn't noticed and guessed why her friend had been acting so weird lately. How she had been silently suffering.

After she had heard Quinn's story, she was consumed with one overwhelming thought. Her friend had been hurt and someone needed to pay. It had been a subconscious reaction on her part. She had barely even blinked and then suddenly she had been at Puck's house ready for a fight, she hadn't stopped to consider what her leaving would have done, all she wanted to do was hurt the person who had hurt her friend. Of course she didn't blame Quinn, Quinn hadn't done anything wrong.

She hesitantly knocks on the door and then peaks her head inside. There on the bed curled in on herself is a crying Quinn, and sitting next to her, gently running a hand up and down her back, trying to console and comfort her as she whispers softly to the girl is Brittany. But Quinn seems pretty out of it and none of Brittany's actions seem to be having an effect.

Brittany looks up and when she sees Santana her face morphs from one of concern and love into one of ice and rage. Santana can say with absolute certainty that she has never seen the blond cheerleader this mad before.

Brittany rushes to her feet and over to Santana, she pushes the girl back into the hallway and shuts the door behind them softly, fixing Santana with and icy stare. "Explain." Is the one word demand.

"I… I was just so mad… I mean its Quinn, our Quinn," Santana chokes back a sob, and Brittany's eyes and demeanor soften. "She's my best friend and she… she was…" Santana couldn't even say it out loud right now, couldn't finish the sentence.

"I was just so angry, she was suffering all of this time, and he! " Santana spits out, "He's been walking around like nothing happened! I wanted him to pay, to suffer… I wasn't thinking, I, I didn't mean to hurt Quinn… I would never hurt her." Santana breaks down, and Brittany has her girlfriend wrapped in her arms in a heartbeat.

She gently runs a hand up and down Santana's back while cradling her head to her chest with her other. She holds the girl for a few more moments before pulling away and kissing her softly. "You need to go in there and talk to her, tell her that you aren't mad at her, that you don't hate her. She's been through so much and you leaving destroyed her." Santana flinches at that.

"I didn't say that to hurt you, I just wanted you to know what you were dealing with." Brittany says softly kissing the girl again. "I'll wait out here for you okay?"

"Wait, do… do you think you could wait inside?" Santana asks meekly, afraid that if she goes in alone she'll make it worse, and that she'll hurt Quinn even more.

"Of course." Her voice shaky and her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and it hits Santana that Brittany isn't taking the news about what happened to Quinn any better than she is and now Santana feels even worse than before.

"Britt I-" Santana starts but Brittany cuts her off with a shake of her head.

"No, Quinn first, then us."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

"Quinn, Querida, it's me, Santana, can you hear me?" Santana asks softly as she kneels by the side of the bed and places a hand on Quinn.

Quinn doesn't answer, but she does open her eyes and stares at Santana as she tries to choke back her sobs.

"Hey Q, I am so sorry I left, I'm not mad at you, not at all and I am so, so, so sorry that I made you think so."

Quinn just closes her eyes again and curls further in on herself, and continues to cry.

"Q, sweetie, its okay, everything is going to be okay, please talk to me." Santana pleads.

"I…" Quinn takes a deep gasp of air and tries to calm herself enough to talk, but fails to do so.

Santana moves to sit next to Quinn and begins to gently run her hand through her friend's hair. As she is doing this she begins to whisper reassurances and apologies to her friend, trying to calm her down. It takes a few minutes but it seems to work and Quinn begins to settle down.

"San?" Quinn chokes out.

"Yeah, I'm hear Q, I'm here." Santana reassures the girl. Santana is scared; she has never seen this extreme a reaction from Quinn before. _'Of course, it's an extreme reaction!'_ Santana scolds herself. _'She just told you she was raped and you leave her, how else is she supposed to react estupida!'_

"I… am so… sorry, please, please… don't hate me… please." Quinn begs.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no, no Querida, I don't hate you, I could never hate you, I swear. I am so sorry, please, please forgive me for leaving. I didn't go because I was mad at you, I promise I wasn't mad at you, please believe me, I love you so much… please forgive me."

"How?" Quinn asks as she starts to cry again. "How can you not hate me?" She questions, her voice a whisper as it breaks off into a quiet squeal at the end.

"It wasn't your fault, you didn't do anything wrong-"

"Of course I did… I… slept with your boyfriend. I knew how much it hurt you when he… he… fooled around… when he cheated. I never…. I didn't mean to betray you… oh God… I am so sorry… I never wanted to… hurt you."

"No, shhhhh, shhhhhhhh, its okay, it's all going to be okay, I promise. You didn't do anything wrong, you didn't betray me Quinn, how can you even think that? He raped you, it wasn't your fault." Santana tries to tell her friend.

Quinn violently shakes her head no. "No, he… he didn't… it was… was my fault… I… I went… went with him… I didn't…. fight… fight him off, I let him do it. I am so sorry, please… please forgive me."

"Q, he got you drunk, he took advantage of you…" Santana trails off when all Quinn does is continue to cry and shake her head no, over and over again. Santana looks over helplessly at Brittany who looks just as lost as she did.

Santana lies down next to Quinn and pulls her close to her and the blond girl responds by clinging to her shirt and burying her face into her chest. Brittany comes and lies down on the other side of Quinn and runs a hand soothingly up and down her back. Santana and Brittany share a look, unsure about what to do next.

**S**

** A.N. Hey, sooo… two chapters in one day… don't expect it to happen again, but nothing is impossible I guess. I have posted to my profile, my feelings about this site, and writing and reviewing stories in general and so if you are interested in what I have to say, check it out, and if not, I won't bore you with it. **

**Thanks for reading… again… and the next chapter will be up "**_**next"**_** Friday.**


	12. Chapter 12

** Standard disclaimer I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

**s**

Santana was emotionally and physically exhausted. She just wanted today to be done, she had all in just the space of a few hours, in not so many words called her best friend a slut, found out that wasn't true and that said friend had in fact been raped, gone to the rapist's house and beat the shit out of him and then found out that she had left her best friend with the impression that she hated her. And to top it all off, she had left her girlfriend to deal with the fallout.

Her initial reaction, leaving and beating up Puck, while feeling good had been the wrong way to handle the situation. When she had made her way back to Quinn, the girl had begged Santana for forgiveness and each apology that the blond girl had given her had felt like the twist of a knife to her heart, and no matter how much she tried to convince the girl that she hadn't done anything wrong, Quinn wouldn't stop apologizing. And when Santana had tried to apologize for her own actions Quinn wouldn't hear it. Her friend was determined to take all of the blame in this situation and it made Santana sick.

She was raped, and for the past eight weeks she had been dealing with it all on her own. When Santana had tried to bring up, what happened with Quinn, the blond girl would clam up and shake her head no, refusing to acknowledge what had happened, determined to take the blame for what was done to her. Neither Santana nor Brittany knew what to do, so they temporarily agreed to just accept the apologies, reassure their friend just how much they loved her and when she finally calmed down, talk to her about this.

It was also silently agreed between both Santana and Brittany that Puck wasn't going to get away with this. For the rest of the day, the two girls stayed in Brittany's room with Quinn, skipping dinner, because neither Santana or Brittany felt like eating and Quinn was in no condition to do anything. She was terrified that they were going to abandon her. Not a chance in hell of that happening, but Santana was ashamed to admit that she hadn't exactly done anything to inspire any confidence of that in this situation. So they just lay with their friend until she ran out of tears and then kept the conversation light and to a minimum before calling it an early night early. Quinn once again spending the night so she wouldn't have to go home and face her parents.

In addition to being exhausted, Santana felt guilty. A horrible, soul consuming guilt that was gnawing at every fiber of her being. Her ex-boyfriend had raped her best friend, and Quinn had been too scared, too worried about her reaction that she hadn't even come to her. And the worst part was, she had essentially proved the girl right, when Santana had found out that Puck was the father of Quinn's baby it had been a punch to the gut.

Dating Puck had been… fun, he was fun. He had been attentive and passionate and it was a kind of whirlwind that helped dull the ache that had been there as she was trying to deal with and come to terms with her feelings for Brittany. But as much as it had been fun, it had been humiliating as well, she knew at least three people who she used to call friends, who had slept with Puck, two of them had tried to keep it a secret from her, _'Probably raped them too.'_ Santana thinks viciously, a lot of her previous anger at the two of them disappearing, but the other one had taunted her about it. It had been a petty, vicious, high school drama bullshit popularity contest kind of fight, but it had brought about an end to a friendship that had lasted for five years. And then take into account the numerous other girls; the ones she both knew about and didn't know about and Santana's self-esteem had taken quite a hit.

She had stayed with Puck because it had been convenient, because facing her feelings for Brittany had been too scary of a concept, and it was easier to deal with Puck's infidelity and the fallout of that than to actually admit that she was gay.

Santana had been stuck in this place where she was too scared to commit to Brittany but being with Puck was slowly draining her and so she had done nothing. Rather than make a decision she had strung Brittany along and allowed herself to stay with someone who didn't love her. It wasn't until the confrontation in the car, where she had finally gained the courage to do what was right for her. And it was partially because of Quinn.

She and Brittany had argued back and forth for what seemed like an eternity. Brittany was sick of feeling like she was being used for sex and Santana was trying to explain that it wasn't like that. And then Santana got angry at Brittany for forcing her to do something she wasn't ready to, with Brittany arguing that she wasn't forcing her to do anything she just wanted a sign that she was more than just a good lay. And it continued on and on like that in her car, until finally Brittany pushed the issue. She had just asked flat out.

"Are we together or not, because I can't keep doing this, I need to know if we're together or if I need to move on. Because I can't take this anymore, I love you but it kills me every time I see you with him and I can't do it anymore. So are we together or not?"

And Santana froze. She couldn't answer; she knew what she wanted to say. She wanted to tell the girl that she loved her, that she was the only one for her, that of course she chose her over Puck. But she was scared. Scared of what would happen if she did say that, terrified of how people would react and what they would do if they found out that she loved another girl, and not just other people, her parents and her grandmother and the rest of her family, how would they react when they found out that she was a lesbian.

And it was as she was looking around trying to figure out what to say to Brittany, how to answer her that she looked over and saw Quinn. Quinn was just sitting there staring at her phone, doing her best to give them privacy. And as Santana studied her friend it really hit her that the girl already knew, she knew and she didn't care, supported her even. She knew that Quinn _knew_ about them but it hadn't really hit her until that moment. Her biggest fear of coming out was losing all of the people that she cared about, that they would stop loving her, and seeing Quinn, and realizing how she felt about it made her realize that she wouldn't. She wouldn't lose everyone, she knew realistically that not everyone would be okay with it, but the ones that mattered and the ones that were good for her, wouldn't care and then Quinn's last words to her came to mind.

_"You're braver than you think."_

And Santana chuckled, she wasn't very brave, not really, but she had definitely found enough courage to finally be honest about herself to herself, to Brittany and to Quinn. The look of confusion on Brittany's face when she heard the laugh had been adorable and it cemented for Santana that this was who she wanted to be with and so Santana had reached over, filled with a new found confidence, and took Brittany's hand and then chose her.

Quinn had helped Santana overcome one of the toughest decisions she had ever faced in her life and she hadn't even realized it, she had just been there and supported her. And Santana couldn't even be bothered to notice the pain her friend was in and now she was in serious trouble. She had been raped and was now pregnant because of it, and she had felt like she had no one to turn to and nowhere to go. She was terrified to go home and face her parents, and she had tried to keep her friends at a distance because she was afraid of how they would react.

"San?" Brittany's whispered voice cuts through the silence.

"Yeah B?"

Both girls were lying on Britt's bed with Quinn between them, her slow and heavy breathing indicating that she was sleeping.

"What are we going to do about Puck?"

Santana takes a moment to calm herself down, just thinking about him brought her rage to a boiling point. "I'm going to talk to my mom about it, see what she thinks the best options are. He doesn't get to walk away from this."

"I agree, should I talk to daddy as well?" Brittany asks.

"Yes, definitely, but I want to talk to my mom before you do, I want to make sure that when this happens, that Quinn is taken care of…" Santana trails off as she makes another decision, one that she should have done a long time ago.

"What's up San?" Brittany asks sitting up and staring at her.

Santana sits up to meet her gaze and steels herself. "I'm also going to tell my mom about Q's home situation. I know I promised not to, but it was a stupid promise and I don't care anymore. I didn't see this coming B. I didn't notice what was happening with Q, she has been acting so different lately and I thought it had to do with Finn and I couldn't have been more wrong, I mean this was huge, how did I miss it? How could I have missed this, and I find myself thinking what else could I have missed? How can I trust myself to watch out for her home life when I wasn't even able to see…. I should have said something the moment I suspected something was wrong and when I saw that bruise, I really should have said something, but I didn't. She's my friend and I have to protect her, Puck will never hurt her again and neither will her parents."

"I agree." Brittany says softly. "And it wasn't just you who missed it, I did too. So we're both agreed, we do what's right for Quinn… even if she hates us for it."

Santana stands up and looks at her girlfriend. "Well then there is no point in waiting."

"Don't you think it would be better to wake Quinn up and talk to her about what we're going to do?"

"Normally yes, but Quinn's entire mode of operation has been to keep this all to herself and handle it alone. And I'm scared that if we do talk to her first, that's what she'll ask us to do, leave it alone and I don't know that I could say no to her right now. Maybe it's wrong to do this behind her back, but… it still needs to be done."

Brittany nods and then gets up and meets her on the other side of the bed, she then pulls Santana into a soft but deep kiss. "Let me know how it goes and then get back here okay."

"Sure thing, if Q wakes up just tell her I'll be back and that I had to run home real quick, not exactly a lie."

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

It was 12:30 when she unlocked the door to her house and went inside. Both of her parents would be sleeping right now and Santana hated to wake them for such a heavy discussion but it was too important to wait. She quietly made her way into their room and went over to her mother's side of the bed.

"Mom, mami, I need you to wake up." Santana says softly as she gently shakes her mother awake.

"Mmmmfrmm…" Maribel's eyes open slowly. "Santana? Mija, what are you doing here, I thought you were sleeping over at Brittany's?" She then notices the look on her daughters face, and it wakes her right up.

"What's wrong baby? Are you okay?" She asks as she sits up, she then turns and slaps her husband's arm to wake him up. "Aiden, wake up."

"Gah! Wha, whas…" Aiden slowly sits up and coughs to clear his throat. He looks around blearily while trying to get his bearings, when he finally notices his daughter. "Santana what are you doing here? What's going on?" He asks looking to his wife.

"Mom, dad… I need to talk to you guys."

"What's going on?" Maribel asks again.

"Can… can we take this to the kitchen, I… need to talk to "lawyer" you." Santana says softly.

Both of Santana's parents exchange worried looks before getting out of bed.

The three of them make their ways into the kitchen and Aiden sit's Santana down at the table while Maribel makes them up some tea. After all three of them are sitting down, Maribel and Aiden wait patiently for their daughter to talk to them. She was always so independent and they knew that sometimes she just needed a moment before she could talk to them.

However a minute passes and Santana just continues to stare into her drink until finally Maribel takes her daughters hand and squeezes it affectionately. "Mija, what's going on?"

"It…" Santana takes a second to find her resolve. She's nervous about telling her parents, but it's the only way she can to think of to help Quinn.

"It's… I have this friend and… and she's pregnant."

Both Maribel and Aiden stare at Santana in shock and then at each other and then back to Santana again. "Are you pregnant?" Aiden asks worried, because when has the phrase "a friend," meant anything other than "me"?

"What!? No! It's… It's not me, it's Quinn… she's pregnant."

"That poor girl…" Maribel says, shocked, before she notices the dark look that crosses her daughters face as does Aiden.

"What else is it princessa?" Aiden asks, beginning to realize just how serious this is.

Santana looks up at her father and there are tears in her eyes. "She was raped daddy." Her voice breaking at the end.

Both Maribel and Aiden felt like their hearts had stopped. Quinn had become an almost permanent fixture in their lives when Santana and Brittany had befriended the girl back when they were twelve and they had both come to love her dearly. She had been quiet and a little shy at first but once she had gotten used to them and had started coming over more often she had been a delight to have around. Always so polite, but still warm, and she had a sharp sense of humor. And she was smart, a good friend for their daughter to have.

Aiden abruptly stands up, Santana was his daughter, but he considered both Quinn and Brittany to be his girl's too, they were both over here often enough, and to hear that, to hear that one of his girls was raped, it was a gut wrenching. He had to pace back and forth, he needed to be doing something, he needed to find out who did this and make sure they never did it again!

"Who?" Was the question he asked, his voice a forced calm.

"Aiden, sit down, mi amor." Maribel says, her voice steady and clipped, she then turns her attention back to her daughter. "Santana, mija, this is very important, I need you to tell me everything you can about what you know. When did it happen, what do you know, everything you can remember, and I'll need to speak to Quinn."

On the outside Maribel was a picture of cool. She was a lawyer and she had prosecuted some of the sickest people that this state had to offer, people who did deplorable things just to get a rise out of you, and she had perfected her stony persona. On the inside, however, it was an entirely different story; inside she was a raging volcano. Someone had hurt one of her girls and she was going to make sure there was hell to pay. It always made her laugh when people said that Santana got her temper from Aiden. Her husband, God she loved him, could bluster and seethe with the best of them, but he was all talk. Santana was a lot like she had been, when they got angry, they acted, the difference was Maribel had learned to direct her anger into something productive. Usually putting scum behind bars, Santana was still working on finding her effective outlet.

"That last part might be a problem." Santana tells her mother.

"Why?"

"Quinn won't admit that she was raped and… she doesn't know I'm here talking to you."

Maribel closes her eyes in concentration, okay, denial was a fairly common reaction, it was a defense mechanism. "Okay let's start with the who, mija, tell me everything you know."

"It was Puck."

"Did he ever hurt you!?" Aiden says angrily, as soon as he heard her say that Puck was the one who did it, that his baby's ex-boyfriend had hurt Quinn, he was suddenly terrified that his little girl had been a victim too.

"No! No… he never," Santana looks down, suddenly ashamed. "It was… it was always consensual… with us." When Santana looked up again, she expected to see looks of disgust or at least disappointment on her parent's faces, but to her surprise there was nothing there but relief.

"You… you aren't mad at me?" She questions them hesitantly.

Maribel leans forward and kisses her forehead. "I do want to talk about it later, but no mija, we aren't mad at you."

Her father ruffles her hair affectionately before sitting back down. "Go on baby, tell us what happened."

"Okay… I, I just heard the full story today." And so Santana goes into the details of what she knows, which is admittedly not much. She tells them it happened about 8 or 9 weeks ago and that he had gotten her drunk, lied about having protection, then after he raped her he then kicked her out onto the street to drunkenly stumble home. She tells them about how she found out and what she did when she found out, and finishes up with letting them know that Quinn is currently at Brittany's house asleep. The situation felt so huge and overwhelming that it was a little amazing to Santana that it took her under ten minutes to tell the story.

"It was a mistake to go after Puck like that. You know that right?" Aiden says sternly.

Santana looks down ashamed. "I know." She startles and then suddenly turns and stares at her mother imploringly. "Please tell me that it won't affect the case!" She begs.

"Don't worry about that mija, the case isn't why going there was a mistake, you do realize that he could have hurt you right? That you put yourself in danger when you went there? That is why it was a mistake to go there." Maribel tells her daughter.

Santana looks completely gob-smacked, because she hadn't even considered that, it hadn't even entered her mind. She had just wanted to cause him pain; she hadn't even considered the risks involved.

Santana is silent for a minute as she digests what her parents had just said, before finally asking, "So, what happens now?"

Maribel takes a calming breath, she can't stop imagining Quinn stumbling home drunk, confused and scared, after being violated, but instead of making it home she just disappears, and it makes her physically ill. But she pushes it back, right now she needs to be the adult and be strong for her daughter, she can cry about it later.

"First thing we need to do is get Quinn to come and talk to either myself or even Ben and get her to press charges. Without that, unless another girl comes forward, there isn't much I can do. At least nothing that any, halfway decent, defense lawyer won't get dropped."

"So there's nothing we can do!?" Santana yells angrily.

"I didn't say that, I can get the ball rolling on my end, but ultimately I do need to talk to Quinn."

"We also need to let her parents know, Quinn will need all of the support she can get. " Aiden throws in.

"No! No you can't tell them!"

Both of her parents look at her weirdly. "San, baby, if something ever happened to you we would want to know about it." Aiden says. "As parents there is nothing more important to us than our children and Quinn's going to need their help, especially since she is pregnant."

"There… there…" Santana takes a steading breath. "There is something else I need to tell you guys as well. Something I should have told you guys a while ago, but I promised I wouldn't, but … but I should have anyway… and… and she made me promise not to, but I… I can't say nothing can I, especially not with what she has just gone through and is going through?"

"Mija, you're babbling, take your time, what else do we need to know?" Maribel soothes her daughter.

"She is going to be so pissed at me." Santana groans under her breath. "Quinn's parents are abusing her."

Both of Santana's parents look startled at this revelation. While neither of them were fans of her parents, they were amiable enough in that, "Yes we will condescend to talk to you, how lucky for you" kind of way. They definitely had that I am better than you air around them, but they would have never guessed that they were abusing the girl.

"Are you sure mija?" Aiden asks seriously.

Santana nods her head meekly. "I don't think her mom ever gets physical with her, but I can't say that for sure. But I do know for a fact that her father does."

"I'll kill them, I'll fucking kill them." Aiden says as he abruptly stands up. His own childhood had been far from fun with how his father had been, and as a doctor he had also seen the type of damage that abuse could do if left unchecked. Abuse was a real trigger for him, and after finding out that she had been raped, Aiden was definitely in the mood to exact some personal justice for Quinn, first on that lowlife Puck, and then on her bastard parents.

"No you won't, and sit down; this needs to be handled correctly. We need to make sure that we act in Quinn's best interest, not what would make us feel better." Maribel scolds him, though she would like nothing better than to pay Puck and the Fabray's a visit herself.

"Now mija, are you absolutely sure that her parents are hurting her." Maribel asks Santana.

"Yes, like I said, I don't know if her mom ever gets physical, but I've seen a bruise that her father left on her… it was pretty bad."

"Why didn't you tell someone sooner?" Maribel asks.

"Quinn made me and Britt promise not to tell anyone, she said that if we did then she would lie and say that they weren't, that we wouldn't have any proof, that telling someone only made it harder for her. I guess she told someone when she was little and it never changed."

"Little?" Aiden questions, dreading what he's about to hear.

"She says that it's been happening for as long as she can remember."

"Fuck." Aiden growls under his breath, he's a fucking doctor, he is trained to watch for these kinds of things and he didn't even notice that it was happening to someone close to him. Maribel doesn't bother to scold him because she's thinking the same thing.

**S**

** A.N. So a bit of a Santana-centric chapter, a little insight to what she thinks and how she feels. For the most part I'll keep to Quinn's point of view, mostly because I find it the easiest to write lol, but I do think it's fun and interesting to switch it up every now and then. So I hope you liked it. Also, and this is extremely important, please note that my knowledge of the American justice system, it's laws, it's procedures, basically anything to do with it at all, stems from Law & Order reruns, so please just go with me whenever some sort of law thing comes up. I'm not going so much for accuracy as I am for story. Thank you for reading and the next chapter will be up next Friday.**


	13. Chapter 13

**So I probably should have sent this out last chapter, but I would like to take a second and thank everybody who sent me reviews and messages telling me how much you have enjoyed my story so far, and just supporting me as a writer. I greatly appreciated it and hearing from you guys makes it so much easier and a lot more fun for me to write and I hope that as I continue to write, it will be a story that you continue to enjoy. So thank you all so very much! Standard disclaimer I don't own Glee or any of its characters.**

** (Quinn singing)**

**s**

When Quinn woke up she felt a warm body pressed up behind her and it freaked her out. She lets out a startled yelp and tries but fails to jump away from the other person, getting tangled in the sheets that were wrapped around her. All of this resulting in an almost drunken somersault out of the bed and her crashing onto the floor.

"Oh my God! Quinn are you okay!?"

It takes Quinn a second to orient herself and she realizes that she is in Brittany's room and by the sound of the other voice; the body that had been pressed up against her had been Brittany.

"I'm fine B." Quinn says awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. "Sorry about that."

"It's okay, you aren't hurt?"

"Nope, all good."

"That's good, because that was hilarious." Brittany giggles.

Quinn laughs as well before saying dryly, "Yeah sure, laugh at the pregnant girl."

That stops Brittany's giggles immediately. "Oh, Quinn…"

"Its fine B, hey… where's Santana?"

Brittany checks the clock and is surprised to see that it's almost 10 in the morning, "Oh she just had to run home real quick, I'm sure she'll be back soon."

Quinn looks down, depressed. "You don't have to cover for her… I'm surprised your still here as well…"

"Quinn," Brittany moves down onto the floor next to her friend. "What happened to you, what he did to you… Why didn't you come to us?"

"What, come to you and tell you how I slept with my best friend's boyfriend, yeah no, that's definitely something that I wanted to tell people."

Brittany looks at her in slight disbelief, "Quinn, what Puck did, getting you drunk like that, it was rape. There is no way that anyone could be mad at you for that, it wasn't your fault."

Quinn is saved from having to explain to her friend that she wasn't raped, that she had brought it on herself, that she had known what kind of guy Puck was and that she had put herself in that situation, that it was her fault, when the door creaks open and Santana pops her head in.

"Hey, I'm back and… what are you two doing on the floor?"

Quinn watches Santana warily and slowly gets up and hesitantly moves to stand in front of her friend, still scared that Santana is still angry at her. "San… I really am sorry."

Quinn is surprised but also relieved when Santana pulls her into a hug. Quinn squeezes back, grateful that her friend is still here, that she hasn't completely destroyed their friendship with her actions. Quinn listens closely as Santana begins to speak softly into her ear. "No Quinn, you don't have anything to apologize for, I am so sorry that I left you like that, that I made you think that I didn't care about you. It was stupid and selfish of me and I am so sorry. You are my best friend and I should have handled it better, you needed me to handle it better and I let you down, and I am so sorry. I love you Q, and when I heard what happened to you I just wanted to… anyway, I'm sorry and I hope you can forgive me and I hope that you know that I am on your side one-hundred percent."

Quinn pulls back, "San, you haven't let me down and what do you have to apologize for, I'm the one who… well you know what I did."

"Look that's one thing that we need to talk about and… please know that I did this because I love you and I don't want you to keep getting hurt." Santana looks really skittish right now and Quinn is left more than a little confused.

"San… what's going on?"

"Please don't be too mad at me, I'm just trying to look out for you… C'mon they're waiting downstairs." Santana refuses to meet Quinn's eye and so Quinn looks to Brittany to get some answers, but Brittany won't look at her either.

"Guys what's going on?" Quinn asks again, really not liking where this is going.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn followed her friend downstairs into the kitchen for, well it was a little late to say breakfast, but that's what it was. She was surprised to see not only Brittany's parents there but also Santana's parents as well and it doesn't take Quinn more than a second to figure out what happened. Quinn grabs Santana by the arm and glares at her.

"You told them!" She hisses, "You fucking told them, I trusted you!"

"Quinn… I… I didn't know what else to do… I-"

"Should have kept your damn mouth shut, what the hell did you tell them!?"

Santana still won't meet Quinn's eyes. "I told them everything, what Puck did to you, you being pregnant… about your parents…"

Quinn flinches at the mention of her parents and lets go of Santana and takes a step back. She looks at the other occupants of the room all staring at her like she is some kind of wounded, wild animal, and she hates it. They think she is weak and broken, and she can see the pity in their eyes and she hates them for it. She hates them because she knows they have every right to look at her like that, like she is less than what she was, like she is in fact some broken, wild thing. She's pregnant, with no father in the picture, her parents abuse her, and she is so scared right now, with no idea about what to do. The truth about her is a far cry from the visage that she likes to present.

Still it doesn't change the fact that she can't stand the looks that she is receiving. She loves these people, she really does. Aiden and Ben have been more father-like to her in the past few years than her own has since as far back as she can remember. And when Maribel or Phoebe tell her that they love her or that they care about her, she never has to wonder about whether or not it's the alcohol talking or them. She loves them and there are nights, most nights if she's being honest, when she wishes that they really were her family.

These feeling, however, don't change how she feels right now. It doesn't change the resentment or the anger that bubbles up inside her because it's easier for her to believe that her friend's parents care about her more than her own. She wishes now, more than ever that she could just run home and crawl into her mother's lap and have her tell her that everything was going to be okay. To have her daddy wrap her in his arms and protect her from the world. But she doesn't have that, she has never had that and she probably never will, and she can feel her resentment and rage coursing through her like a poison, and as she looks at these people who truly care about her, that truly love her, she finds that she hates them for it. And she hates herself for hating them.

"No." She says firmly to all of the people around her.

"No." She repeats once more.

"Quinn please, why don't you and I go for a walk and we can talk-"Maribel says calmly and soothingly, but Quinn is having none of it.

"No, no, no, no, no! This is not happening, I am not doing this." Quinn then begins to storm away from them, intent on leaving. She needs to get out of here; she needs to get away from these people. She is in trouble and she needs help and there they are, a room full of people who want to help her, to be there for her and she has no idea how to deal with it, how to handle it, it's just too foreign a concept for her.

"Quinn wait!" Santana yells, as she catches up to the girl just as she reaches the door. "Please, Querida, you need help and-"

"Shut up!" Quinn screams, "Just shut up! I trusted you, I begged you not to tell anyone, I needed to figure this out, and you went and told everyone about me!" Tears well in Quinn's eyes. "How can I go in there and even look at them!? How am I supposed to even talk to them, now that they know just how fucked up I am! I don't know what to do, and I am so scared right now, and I needed my best friend to just be there for me, to just stand by me, while I worked things out! Not go and blab to her parents!"

"Quinn… I… I'm sorry, I… just wanted to help you… to make sure… that you would be okay." Santana says, tears falling from her eyes. She was so scared for her friend and she had no idea how to help her, and Quinn had been in a downward spiral for so long that Santana felt that she had no other choice but go to her parents. She had no idea what else she could have done for her best friend.

Maribel walks up slowly to the two girls and lets her hand lightly hover over Quinn's shoulder, not actually making contact, wanting to give the girl her space, but also wanting to let her know that she wasn't alone. "Quinn sweetheart, please we are just here to help, we love you and you don't have to be alone in this, you have options and-" But the close proximity and her calming words have the exact opposite reaction that Maribel was hoping for.

"Don't touch me!" Quinn screams and takes a large step back from the mother and daughter, her eyes wild with fear.

"Please Quinn; I'm just here to help." Maribel says gently.

"Help! Help!? What the hell do you think that you can do that someone else hasn't tried!? I've seen this song and dance before, and I know how it ends! Everybody says they want to help, but when it comes down to it you don't ever get jack shit done, and I'm the one left to suffer the consequences! You want to help me, you really want to help!? Then butt out and just leave me the fuck alone! All of you just leave me alone!" And with that Quinn flings open the door and storms outside, trying to get home and as far away from this place as she can.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

Quinn was eleven years old the first and the last time she tried to change things about her home situation. She knew that when her parents drank they weren't particularly nice and Francine spent so much of her time away from home that Quinn was left to deal with the brunt of it. She liked to hold on to the hope that her parents loved her, that it was just the alcohol that made them so mean.

She can remember the day that started it all, it was a Saturday and she was running around the house, just playing. She was excited to go to a sleepover at a girl from her class that weekend, and as it was her first sleep over ever, she was even more excited. She had been a chubby little girl, and had been a target for teasing and bullying because of it, but this last summer she had discovered sports, and dancing and had lost the excess weight and was now, finally, starting to make friends, she had even started going by Quinn, her middle name, rather than Lucy as a way to kind of commemorate her ascension from a loser into one of the cool kids.

She had been so excited that she had failed to notice the mood of her parents, in this case, particularly her father. She was laughing and giggling and running around and when she passed her father's office she failed to notice that he was there. When she ran past again, she was jerked out of her run by her father's tight grip and before she could register what was going on a sharp pain engulfed the right side of her face, and her vision went white and she started to feel a little dizzy.

"Stop your running around! I can't concentrate with all of that commotion!" He screams at her.

Quinn's eyes start to water, "I'm… I'm sorry…" She starts to cry.

SLAP!

Quinn's head snaps to the side and she's left in a kind of daze as her head scrambles from the force of the blow.

"Stop your sniveling, I can't stand it, now get out of here and be quiet!" Her father then releases her and slams the door to his office.

Quinn stands there in a daze until the shock of the situation wears off and she starts to cry, silently, because she is terrified that her father will do it again. She shuffles down stairs to find her mother who is in the kitchen. She is on the phone and so Quinn, trying to be as quiet as she can, goes over to her mother and tugs on her sleeve.

Her mother continues to ignore her, until finally she speaks quietly into the receiver. "Hold on just a second." She then covers the mouth piece with her hand and turns and glares at her youngest daughter. "Whatever it is I'm busy right now, what do you want?" She asks angrily.

"It… it's… daddy… he-"

"Oh my God, just stay out of his way, you know how he can be when he gets like this, and stop bothering me." She then turns away from her daughter and goes back to her conversation.

Quinn is stunned by her mother's reaction. She wasn't always the most maternal of people but she hadn't thought that she would get a reaction like this. Quinn makes her way to the bathroom, to clean herself up and to get ready for the sleep over, when she looks in the mirror. The right side of her face is a bright red and is starting to bruise. There is no way that she can go to the sleepover looking like this, like she got into some kind of fight.

Later, Quinn calls her new friends and lets them know that she can't make it because a family thing that just came up. She spends the rest of the weekend hiding away in her room, avoiding her parents and hoping that Francine will come home soon, that maybe she could do something about this. It isn't right, yeah she was being noisy, but he had no reason to hit her and it was wrong, and then her mother had done nothing about it, in fact she hadn't even cared.

This wasn't the first time she had been hit and it wasn't the first time she had been ignored, but she was finally old enough to realize that it was wrong, that it shouldn't happen. She can remember back when she was really young her parents hadn't been like this at all, but then her daddy had gotten this new job, and he started staying out later and later and then her mommy started drinking more and more, and things kept deteriorating until they had finally reached the point that they were now.

But again, now Quinn knew that it was wrong, and so she decided that on Monday she would tell her teacher what was going on and then he could get them to stop. When Monday morning came around and as she's getting ready for school her mother pulls her aside.

"You clumsy girl, what did you do to your face?"

A spark of hope appears in Quinn's chest.

"It… it was daddy-"

Judy roughly grabs Quinn by the shoulders and gives her a shake. "Don't say things like that, and what were you thinking, going to school looking like that, come with me." Judy then drags Quinn to the bathroom and applies makeup to help cover up the bruise on her face.

Later when Judy drops Quinn off at school she says, "I love you Quinnie." But Quinn doesn't respond, because for the first time she questions whether or not that it's true.

It's during lunch that she approaches her teacher about her parents. She goes in and talks to him and she wipes off the cover up and he seems shocked by what he sees. From there everything seemed to move in a blur. She was ushered to the principal's office where she told her story to her. Then a police officer came in and she had to repeat the story again, and then finally someone from social services was called in and she had to repeat her story yet again.

It was really starting to frustrate Quinn, she just wanted her daddy to not hurt her anymore and her mom to care about her, she didn't see what the big deal was and why she had to keep repeating herself. They were adults, she had been told that when she was in trouble that she should go to these people, her teachers, police officers, and that they would be able to help her. And then finally after what felt like forever Quinn was finally allowed to go back to class, but was told that she had to come back to the principal's office after school. She hadn't thought anything of it and had gone back to class and had spent the rest of the day carefree.

She had done it, she had told an adult about what was happening at home and now they would take care of everything, her parents would stop being so mean and they could be a real family. Only that didn't happen. When she was ready to go home for the day she went to the principal's office like she had been told to, however, waiting for her was her mother, who looked angrier than she had ever seen her.

Quinn was never completely sure what had happened, but from what she learned, after she had told her story, her parents had then been contacted and had told everyone that there had been some sort of mistake and that they didn't hurt and would never hurt their children. The social services person and the police officer had gone and questioned her sister about it, and she had basically told them that she had been lying, that their parents never hurt them. Quinn, at the time, couldn't understand why Francine wouldn't tell the truth, looking back on it however, it was probably for the same reason that Quinn no longer tried, she had learned it did no good.

They explained away Quinn's bruise by saying that she had been rather rowdy that weekend and had probably hurt herself on accident. When asked why Quinn would say that she was being abused they had said that both of them had been rather busy lately and Quinn was probably just looking for attention.

The next few days at home were tense. Her parents were both silent around her and wouldn't even look at her when in the same room. Finally one night she was summoned into her father's office and as she hesitantly entered the room she watched as her father stood facing away from the door. And as she cautiously moved closer she spoke.

"You wanted to see me?"

Her father turns to look at her, and he has a weird contemplative look on his face that she can't quite place. He takes a seat behind his desk and motions for her to come over and stand by him, which she does.

"Yes, I want to know why you told people that we abuse you." He says in a calm and commanding voice.

Quinn looks down, scared before mumbling her answer.

"Speak up and don't mumble, I want to know why you put this family through that, now answer me."

She looks up with a fire in her eye. If the adults won't do anything about it then she will. If she can just talk to her father and get him to see that what he's doing and how mom is acting are wrong then everything will be okay. Everything can still work out and they can be a family and maybe even Francine won't spend so much time away from home.

"Because you do, you and mom drink so much and when you do, you get mean, and you hit me and Franny and mom, and mom says mean things and Francine goes away and is never around anymore and it needs to stop!" She says fiercely.

"Your mother and I do not abuse you, yes I may discipline you on occasion and yes your mother may be busy at times and we do expect a lot of you, but we do not abuse you." He says angrily.

"Yes you do! You always hit me and mommy and Fran, and mommy is always saying mean things and she doesn't care that you do and it needs to stop!" She screams.

"Settle down!" He yells at her.

"NO!"

"I said stop it, behave yourself!" He shouts at her.

"NO, and I'm going to keep telling until it does stop!" She threatens.

"YOU WILL NOT SPREAD LIES ABOUT THIS FAMILY!" He screams, standing up suddenly, his face red with anger.

The next thing that Quinn knew was that her face was exploding with considerable pain. Her father had once again slapped her across the face but due to him standing up and the force of the blow and the angle at which he struck her, she had been knocked down and her face had slammed into his desk, her nose shattering on impact.

From there her memories are pretty fuzzy; she was told that she had a concussion and that her nose would need reconstructive surgery. After being hit her next clear memory is of being in the hospital room, and a police officer coming in to speak with her, the same one from before. He asked her how it happened and she lied to him. She told him it was an accident and that she had been running and that she had tripped. She already tried telling the truth, she had tried going for outside help and that had failed. And so she had tried to handle it on her own, and now here she was, in the hospital, waiting for surgery.

At that moment she had resigned herself to her fate. She would suffer through this, do everything that she could to just survive and when she was old enough she would move out. Trying to get help, trying to change things, just made her situation worse.

When her parents were finally allowed to visit her, they had fussed over her, and it would have been nice if she hadn't figured that all that they were doing was covering their tracks, still she soaked up the attention because this was exactly how she wished they were all of the time. Her daddy apologized and she forgave him because what else could she do, she was trapped with these people until she was eighteen. She had even apologized for causing trouble and for making them worry. Her best bet at survival was to play the dutiful daughter and just grin and bear it. And even still, after all of that, after everything that she had gone through she still held on to the hope that they would change, that things would change and that she could actually be a family with them. A fool's hope, but one that she held onto dearly. She still had to believe that when it came down to it that they would be there for her and that she wasn't alone.

They moved shortly after she left the hospital. They said it was because her father had gotten a better job in a place in a small town called Lima, but Quinn knew that it was because people were starting to ask uncomfortable questions about the Fabray's home life. She didn't put up a fight about moving, and in the end the move actually worked out pretty well for her because very early on she made two new friends that would eventually become the very best friends that she would ever have.

But from this experience Quinn had learned her lesson, people always say that they want to help, that they are going to help, but when it came down to it, she was on her own. Adults talk a big game, but in the end that is all it is, talk. If she wanted her situation to improve, if she wanted things to change then she would have to play it smart. Just grin and bear it and when the first chance came, leave. But most importantly, she had to do it alone.

**s**

**xXx-Scene Break-xXx**

**s**

When Quinn finally got home she had calmed down enough to realize that she had probably over reacted. She was still angry and she still had no desire to accept their help, but rather than let her anger run rampant she had calmed down enough to focus it and use it. She was out of time, she was starting to show, and she didn't know how far that her friends were going to go with their meddling.

It was time to suck it up, and just tell them. Tell her parents that she was pregnant. She couldn't hide it any longer and she needed to know what her situation was going to be like. She needed to start going to doctor's appointments and getting the vitamins and other things that she will need to go through this pregnancy and she also needed to start figuring out whether or not she was going to keep the baby or if both she and the baby would be better off if she gave it up. There was the option of having an abortion but that didn't feel like the right choice for her.

So, she needed to decide whether or not to keep it or give it up, and to be able to decide that, she needed to know where her parents stood. However, neither of them were currently home, which was actually a relief to Quinn because she had no desire to actually have this conversation with them. She goes upstairs to her room and changes out of her old clothes and into one of her white sun dresses. When her phone buzzes and she sees that it is Brittany she ignores it and when it buzzes again and she sees that it is Santana she turns it off and sets it on her dresser.

She falls back on her bed and lays there eagle spread and as she lays there she allows her whole situation to come crashing down on her. And instead of consuming her and causing her to panic she feels a detached sense of calm. She has a plan, not a good one, but still she has something to focus on, and so she starts to hum quietly into the silence of her room before softly starting to sing to herself.

**Another day has almost come and gone **

**Can't imagine what else could go wrong **

**Sometimes I'd like to hide away somewhere and lock the door **

**A single battle lost but not the war **

**('cause) **

**Tomorrow's another day **

**And I'm thirsty anyway **

**So bring on the rain **

**It's almost like the hard times circle 'round **

**A couple drops and they all start coming down **

**Yeah, I might feel defeated, **

**And I might hang my head **

**I might be barely breathing - but I'm not dead **

**(no) **

**Tomorrow's another day **

**And I'm thirsty anyway **

**So bring on the rain **

**Ooooooh**

**No I'm not gonna let it get me down **

**I'm not gonna cry **

**And I'm not gonna lose any sleep tonight **

**('cause) **

**Tomorrow's another day **

**And I am not afraid **

**So bring on the rain **

**Tomorrow's another day **

**And I'm thirsty anyway **

**So bring on the rain **

**No, not gonna let it get me down **

**And I am not afraid**

**So bring on the rain **

When she finishes singing and as she is laying there she allows herself to cry. However it's not the tearful sobs of grief and confusion and pain that they have been these past few weeks, but a silent stream of tears, that allow her to express and release all of her pent up emotions. She had finally decided on her course of action. She always knew that she was going to have to talk to her parents and the very thought of doing it scared her to her very core, but now that she had finally decided to do it she felt a certain calm about her.

She spends the rest of the day just wandering around her room. She falls into a kind of auto-pilot, she does a little homework, and listens to music, and surfs the web. None of it registers though; it all passes in a kind of daze. She continues on like this until the sun has finally set and she hears the garage door open in the distance. Her parents are finally home.

She heads downstairs and can hear them laughing as they come inside. She waits by the entrance and watches as they stumble into the house, holding each other up, as they giggle and stumble in together both of them a little tipsy.

"Quinnie!" her mom squeals when she sees Quinn. "Baby how are you?"

"Hey sweetie." Her father says as he and Judy make their way over and he ruffles her hair. Both of them are a little buzzed and Quinn knows from experience that in an hour or two they'll both be completely plastered. This is about as close to sober as she's going to get them, so if she's really going to tell them tonight, now is the time.

"Mom, Dad, I have something I need to talk to you about."

"Sure sweetheart, let's head into the living room." Russell says placing a kiss on her forehead as he walks past her, her mother in tow.

Quinn follows behind them quietly. She is surprised by how calm she still feels; she figured that by the time she actually came to this point that she would be a nervous wreck. She wasn't sure how, but she felt fine, no not fine, numb. Which was probably a good thing, because it was better to do this calmly rather than emotionally.

Her father sits in his recliner and her mother takes a seat on the love seat and pats the spot beside her, motioning for Quinn to sit next to her.

As Quinn takes the spot next to her mother she takes a deep breath.

"What's going on Quinnie, what's new with you?" Her mother asks, squeezing her knee affectionately.

"Oh God… I don't know where to begin." Quinn says breathlessly.

"What's going on Quinn?" Her father asks.

"The… last couple of weeks I've been going through some things and… something happened."

"It's okay Quinnie, you can tell us." Judy says smiling.

Quinn looks away from her mother and stares straight ahead, avoiding looking at either of her parents, "I'm… pregnant."

The room is silent and Quinn is unsure of how to proceed. After what seems like an eternity passes in silence she turns to look at her mother. "Mom?"

SLAP!

Quinn is stunned when her mother slaps her, it was the first time in her entire life that her mother had struck her. "Mom-"

SLAP!

"Don't you mom me, how dare you, you little slut. We give you every advantage, we love you and take care of you and you… you go out and spread your legs and you get… pregnant like some little whore." Judy stands up and starts pacing. "How could you do this, how could you embarrass us like this, you have always caused us trouble, but this is so beyond anything you have ever pulled before."

"Mom please!" Quinn begs, "I didn't mean for this to happen, I-"

"Oh you didn't mean for this to happen, well I guess that just makes it okay then." Judy sneers.

Quinn stares at her mother in disbelief as tears begin to fall from her eyes. "Mommy please, I don't know what to do, I am so, so scared right now and I need you, please help me!"

But her mother ignores her pleas and turns away from her. So Quinn turns desperately to her father, who has just sat there in silence since her confession. "Daddy, daddy, please say something!"

Her father turns to look at her but as he's staring at her it seems that he is looking past her, not really seeing her. "I remember the day we brought you home from the hospital, it was the happiest day of my life. You were so little and so precious." He says in a distant voice.

"I couldn't believe that it was possible to love someone so much. You were my little girl, my precious little angel and I would do anything to protect you." His eyes focus and harden as he truly looks at her. "I don't recognize you, who are you? You are not my daughter, my daughter would never do something like this."

"Daddy please, daddy, I need you, I'm so scared right now and I need you and mom! I need you both! Please daddy!"

Russell Fabray stands up and begins to walk away. "Get out of my house, you are no longer welcome here."

"Daddy no, please don't do this!"

"You have twenty minutes to pack and then get out. I don't ever want to see you again."

As both of her parents are leaving, Quinn starts to panic. This can't be happening, they are her parents, they are supposed to love and protect her no matter what. This can't be happening, it just can't! They can't abandon her, they have to help her! Quinn rushes up after them and she latches on to her father's arm sobbing.

"Please daddy, please! Don't do this, I need your help, please, I love you both so much and I don't know what to do, I need you, please, help me!"

"Let go of me." her father growls.

"No, no, no, no!" She sobs, "Please daddy-"

CRACK!

A sharp pain shoots across the side of her face spreading out like fiery web. Her head spins as bright sharp lights spread across her blurring field of vision. And as the floor rushes up to meet her, she finds herself asking one question _'why?'_

**s**

** A.N. The song used is "Bring on the Rain" by Jo Dee Messina. Thank you for reading and I hope that you have all been enjoying the story so far, next chapter will be up on Friday. **


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